


All the Things We Learned

by spaceleviathan



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Death that isn't death, M/M, Mythology - Freeform, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-12-15
Updated: 2014-09-23
Packaged: 2018-01-04 16:19:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 18
Words: 99,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1083090
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spaceleviathan/pseuds/spaceleviathan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There was something about Loki which inspired hate in others. Clint certainly wanted to kill him. But that didn't mean, once the time came, that Clint actually wanted to KILL him. </p><p>It was one thing to put a bullet in an eyeball and quite another to kick a man when he was down.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 20 - Prologue

Later, when Clint had time to sit down and consider it, he realised that there had been something calm about Loki.

He hadn’t had time to brood on it before, what with the _happening_ in California with Stark followed almost directly by an incident in New York with Captain America and Tasha. Not to mention the alien invasion in London. Clint had been the only SHIELD member highly qualified enough to deal with hostile aliens – having experience in the field – so he had been hoisted on out to the United Kingdom, just in time to see things settle down and the videos of Thor swinging his hammer and saving the day get uploaded to _youtube_.

Thor himself was nowhere to be seen, but Erik Selvig had been present, thankfully with his pants on; something that Clint didn’t appreciate as a pleasure until hours later. Willing to talk to the one person who could sympathise with his disjointed mindset, Selvig had been full of information.

“Was it Loki?” Clint had asked when he had been ushered into the home of Dr. Jane Foster’s mother to see the complicated data both astrophysicists had gathered. Erik and Jane walked him through it, whilst Darcy Lewis and her intern Ian Boothby scoured the internet for every amateur video and snap-chat picture they could find.

Jane shook her head, talking rapidly about elves and ‘Malakith’, and something called _the Aether_. Clint told them they’d have to be called in for statements, whilst privately considering that psychiatric evaluations were needed for Selvig and Foster, who seemed to be off their collective nut. Erik, his excuse being Loki had lingered in his brain for too long, was still twitchy and had a habit of ignoring his pants. Clint couldn’t say the urge wasn’t unknown to him. Jane, on the other hand, was babbling nonsense about Loki and Thor and _teamwork_.

“Are you okay there, doctor?” He asked her, all professional and respectful, concerned when she recounted her jaunt to the _‘_ Dark World’ of Svarltfheim, where Loki piloted them without killing anyone. He also, she recalled, protected her when Thor was needed elsewhere.

“I might have been a little out of it,” she admitted in the face of both Clint and Erik’s frowns. “But I remember. He smelt-“ she paused, for a second wandering her memories, whilst Clint became increasingly worried for her sanity. “Like magic. Electric. Similar to Thor, but… but Thor smells like storms. Loki-“

“Dr. Foster, are you sure that you’re alright? That he didn’t do anything to you?” That she had been close enough to smell him was enough to concern him, but if she was recalling Loki as heroic rather than psychotic spoke volumes regarding her sanity.

Jane snapped back to herself then, glaring at the SHIELD agent. “I’m not defending him. He almost tore down New York!” She stopped, faltered a little bit, continued: “I feel bad for Thor, though. Loki died, and I think it was to save Thor.”

“He’s dead?” Clint latched onto, surprised and delighted, catching an aborted expression of glee appear and disappear on Erik’s face.

“We had to leave him on the dark world,” Jane nodded. “Thor said they’d send out sentries to find them, and that they’d recover him.”

“Should have left him there,” Clint snapped unkindly, not feeling mournful even for Thor. Not after what Loki did to him. Jane didn’t say anything else, instead offering a cup of coffee.

He took all they had gathered back to SHIELD, landing in America around the same time that Natasha and Steve arrived at the Helicarrier bloodied and bruised, there to report what had happened with thenewly-dubbed ‘Winter Soldier’, as well as listen to Clint’s own summary.

“Got there too late,” he told Hill, Fury and his two fellow Avengers. “Thor had wiped the floor with the bastards.” He passed over a folder full of the scientific research and some of the eye-witness testimonies he’d managed to record, glancing over the part where Jane went quiet and broody about the demise of Loki Laufeyson. “All I know is that it’s something about elves and nothing to do with Loki, and all hostiles are dead. Thor’s gone off to reconcile with his dad and everyone’s safe.”

“Right,” Fury said, flicking through the file briefly before handing it over to Hill. He asked again about Loki, just to be sure. One could never be too careful when it came to the God of Mischief.

“Apparently he got himself killed,” Clint told the room, though was hesitant to believe it without seeing a body.

“Good.” Fury nodded, sharing the archer’s doubt but willing to accept his word until proven otherwise. The general turned on the other two agents, and whilst Clint knew that he should have paid attention he instead found his mind reeling back to the previous year, when he had first met and experienced Loki nestling neatly inside his mind.

And, inevitably, he considered how Loki had been calm.

Oftentimes, whilst caught under the influence of the Tesseract, Clint had left the base and all those within it, Loki included, seemingly hunky-dory, or at least functioning, but returned with everyone on edge with Loki as the cause of each minion’s agitation.

The god in question would be snappish and twitchy, glaring at each recruit whilst they tiptoed around him. Clint, fearless with the effect of the Tesseract coursing through the electrons in his head, would happily report back to the boss even when he was cold and frosty and deadly.

When Clint would address him, Loki would turn on him, furious anyone would dare come so close. But then he’d recognise Clint and his arm would pause in the air from where he had almost struck him, his grip around the knife loosening. His shoulders would drop.

“Barton,” he said once, cloudy eyes casting over Clint’s face, voice soft and careful. Breathless, like he’d run a mile, like his fury had taken all the air with it. Clint would remember the temperature rise, and how Loki’s breath steamed in the previously unseasonably icy surroundings.

Now Clint thought about it, Loki didn’t react like that to other people.

He was fond of Erik. Clint remembered quite clearly the way that he addressed the Avenger like a soldier, but Erik like a friend. With hindsight it was obviously a manipulation tactic, because he still seemed tense and careful in the scientist’s presence. Clint, on the other hand… Well, he acted as if the archer had come to take the weight of the world from his shoulders.

Clint had never wanted to look back on the time he spent under Loki’s control, because he had done things which, whilst not unusual for him, were certainly not what he had _wanted_ to do. Freewill was important. It was more traumatic for Selvig, as the mind behind the alien portal being developed and the hand that opened it for the Chitauri, but Clint had still provided the scientist (and in turn, Loki) with the materials needed for said portal, and he wasn’t happy about that.

It wasn’t something he liked to reflect on, and Natasha oftentimes encouraged him to ignore what he had done, to not blame himself for his actions, and he trusted her a lot more than he did himself. But now, with what had happened in London, alongside Foster’s report and the news of Loki’s apparent death, he inexorably found his thoughts drifting back in time.

Natasha was speaking whilst Steve was frowning severely over a file, their report a complex and emotional rollercoaster, but Clint had come upon a revelation and he couldn’t help blurting it out, cutting Natasha short.

“I think Loki liked me.”

The agents graced him with a strange expression. Clint felt as incredulous as they looked. But he had come to realise that every time Loki didn’t attack Clint when he could have, each instant that Loki’s voice softened and his eyes lost their murderous gleam, was something deeper than the trust than just having control of a mind. He treated Selvig carefully, like a doll which he had to cradle with gentle hands, and that gave way to the false image of friendship and understanding. He treated Clint, however, with absolute respect. There was a trust in his ability which stretched further than his seemingly limited knowledge should.

He had aimed for Clint, the archer realised. When he’d first come through the portal, he had not been killed even when all but one other agent had. Clint had been the first to be targeted with the Tesseract, and he had since learned that Loki never did anything accidentally. Clint didn’t know what it implied, nor did he like any potential insinuations, but he heartily disapproved of ever finding out. That it had kept him alive was enough.

“Liked you?” Hill asked, and Clint understood (though he did not appreciate) the disbelief in her tone.

“Is that so impossible?” He asked, to which Natasha immediately nodded.

“This is Loki. The only thing that _is_ impossible for him is feeling genuine emotions for another person.”

Clint wasn’t going to deny it, but he also couldn’t shake the feeling that something else was happening; something deeper than merely Loki being coo-coo-bananas.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm somewhat hesitant to post this, but we'll see how it goes. Please, comments are appreciated.


	2. 1 - Norway

Clint wasn’t happy with their change in location. In fact, he, Natasha and Steve were still trying to figure out where they were and _how_ in the hell they got there.

The last time he had blinked, he had been in the gym with the two of them, happily watching Black Widow wrestle Captain America to the ground. Unless the three of them had been poisoned or hit with something endowed with memory altering properties, or they’d all experienced a moment of shared psychosis, they certainly _weren’t_ in Kansas anymore. All they knew was that one moment found them in the Helicarrier, happily minding their own business, and the next they were dressed in their appropriate uniforms, weapons in hand, in the middle of the countryside.

Clint clambered up a tree, trying to find a good vantage point. He quickly discovered they were in a dense woodland area, which spanned as far as the darkening horizon.

“Night fall!” He called down to the other two, who were weaving through the nearby foliage. “Wasn’t it just lunch?”

Natasha and Steve shared a glance, but shrugged up at the archer. They had no more answers than he did.

Black Widow asked, “Anything else?”

“Nope, nothing. Not even-“ He paused, the dimming light catching a flutter of atypical darkness flickering over the green skyline. “Smoke!” It was distant enough that he could still raise his voice and not be overheard.

“A chimney?” Steve asked, but Clint thought it was more likely a campfire. “So there’re people. We should go talk to them.”

“What if they’re hostiles?” Natasha asked sensibly. They had appeared in the middle of nowhere without any recollection of getting there, and the assassin had been in the business of weird and unusual happenings for long enough to know when it was appropriate to exercise caution.

“We need to ask questions.” Steve’s counter argument was, whilst more reckless, also significantly more productive.

Natasha would have argued her point, if it hadn’t been for a sudden brief flash of light from the west. The green glow signalled the emergence of someone Clint recognised, even from this distance.

“Stark’s here,” he told the two on the ground, though the longer he watched Iron Man cut through the sky the more he noticed more unusual aspects of his flight pattern. “I thought he’d destroyed all his suits.”

It also as if the inventor had no control. Clint knew enough about the Iron Man armour to be aware that as long as Stark was wrapped up snug in one of his machines, he could survive a drop from almost as high as his own skyscraper. He was certainly not falling from such an impressive height here, but there was something wrong.

Clint clambered from treetop to treetop, peeking over the foliage every so often, mostly to keep the campfire smoke in sight. He directed them towards where Stark had landed, keeping an eye on the sky in case any other Avengers appeared out of nowhere. All they were missing now were Thor and Banner.

He dropped down onto a low-hanging branch when they reached Iron Man, who was lying face down on the floor. Steve rolled him over to show that his helmet was open, but his eyes closed. He prodded at the inventor’s face for a long moment to determine if he was breathing or not, and came away satisfied.

“How’d he get here if his suit isn’t even functioning?” Natasha asked, whilst Clint stared critically up at the sky.

He said, “I thought I saw…” but trailed off when he considered the flicker of light in the sky, not quite knowing what it was. Magic, probably. “A portal.” Similar to the shade of Loki’s manipulations, but if he was dead then that shouldn’t be possible. “Hey, do you remember when I said Loki’s a scheming slab of lies and trickery?”

“He’s not dead, is he?” Steve completed.

“I didn’t believe it for an instant.” Clint wrapped his fingers around his bow and prepared his favourite arrows to aim at the god’s pointy face.  Natasha and Steve did likewise, glancing around cautiously.

The female assassin said, “Perhaps we should get Stark somewhere safe. Somewhere we can defend.”

“And not wide out in the open,” Steve nodded, glaring at the growing shadows in each tree. “Good idea. Hawkeye?”

Clint clambered up another tree, trying to spot anywhere nearby where they could drag the unconscious inventor and wait for him to wake up. He jumped down again when he heard a rustling, a movement nearby, and he pointed an arrow in that direction whilst Natasha crept closer and Steve stood back by Stark.

Natasha disappeared into the bushes. Clint didn’t bother to waste any energy worrying for her safety. It didn’t matter who was on the other side of the undergrowth, be they a civilian or Nick Fury himself, since the woman venturing into it was the most competent and deadly assassin that Clint had ever encountered. There had been a reason why he had chosen to go against the assassination SHIELD had assigned for him, and it wasn’t even partially due to her pretty face. A lot of it, if he was going to admit anything, was to do with the fact he hadn’t even been sure if he could physically complete the mission.

She called out soon enough, signalling that she was alright, before coming back into sight with a scruffy brown-haired scientist in tow.

“Dr. Banner,” Steve smiled upon seeing him, reaching out to shake his hand companionably.

“Just call me Bruce,” the doctor corrected, fidgeting with his fingers as Steve stepped back. He glanced to Tony. “Is he alright?”

“He’s breathing,” Steve confirmed. “He’ll be okay. Do you know where we are?”

Banner shook his head, starting when he glanced up and caught sight of Clint lingering in the shadows of the trees. “Is _everyone_ here?”

“We’re just missing Thor,” Natasha said. “Though, assuming by the rate of which we’re appearing, he’ll likely show up sooner rather than later.”

“You mean now,” Clint said, catching the flash of magic ripping a hole in the sky again. This time, the man who fell out of it quickly shook themselves awake and a swing of his hammer had him streaking through the sky.

Natasha pointed her wrist to the clouds, letting loose a flash of quick-fire rounds, signalling the god down. The thunder god, all muscles and blond plaits, red cape billowing dramatically as he landed beside his fellow heroes, spared time to smile even when arriving in an unfamiliar location through strange means.

“Friends,” he greeted each of them, nudging Tony’s armour with his boot briefly, but swiftly judging his wellness.

“This is your brother’s fault, isn’t it?” Clint accused loudly.

“Loki is dead,” Thor shot back sharply. “He did not bring us here.”

“Did you see the magic?” Clint tried to point out, but Thor had an argument for that too.

“Yes, I did. It is not Loki’s.”

“Then whose is it?”

“I do not know every magician in all the nine realms.”

“What I’d like to know is where is _here_ exactly?” Bruce interrupted, frowning, seeing the way that their talk was dissolving into the realms of argumentative and deeming it a nuisance under the circumstances. “We’re still on earth, right?”

Thor nodded with easy knowledge. He spoke, “Whilst the landscape is similar to Vanaheim, there is a lack of seiðr here. It’s easily recognisable as Midgard for those who can spot the differences.”

“That’s something, at least,” Steve said, kneeling down by Tony and trying to shake his shoulder. Upon the movement, the inventor groaned, but didn’t immediately wake. He and Banner continued to try and rouse the billionaire whilst Thor shot up into the air to assess their grounding and Clint and Natasha prowled the perimeter on the lookout for whoever had brought them here.

With a groan and a particularly rough shake, Iron Man finally regained consciousness, opening his eyes and looking up at his companions bewilderedly. It took him only a moment to recognise the two of them, and was clearly a snarky comment away from dangerously pissing Captain America off in the name of pissing Captain America off, when from the trees burst a thin man with vivid green eyes and short black hair.

“Loki!” Natasha accused, running forward from the trees whilst Stark shot up into the air with a short, colourful exclamation. The others tensed into battle-ready positions, Bruce looking more jittery with every second. Loki’s attention had been drawn, however, up towards Iron Man, surprise leaving his stance open and defenceless. Clint, immediately seeing the god’s error, used it to utilise the arrow which he had been saving since they arrived.

And they had all claimed that he was dead. Ha. Clint knew it has been much too good to be true, no matter how many times anyone insisted on it. And nor did it matter how wide-eyed and astounded the green-eyed trickster looked; Loki was a manipulative schemer, a step ahead of everyone else. Clint didn’t dare give him a moment to explain himself, because that moment could completely turn their advantage around to Loki’s favour.

Clint smirked when the arrow hit dead centre chest, smacking straight into his chest plate. The god stared down for a moment, gobsmacked, before being thrown backwards with the force of the explosion as the arrow-head detonated.

Thor landed by Steve a moment later, having heard the blast from above. He said, “I think we’re in Norway-“ before teetering off, staring, transfixed and horrified, down at the unmoving figure of his brother. Loki hadn’t twitched since he’d hit the ground, and, going by the oozing hole in his chest and the blank-eyed stare which looked out into the dark flora of the forest floor, he likely wasn’t going to move again.

Well. That was a new one. Clint had preferred the exploding arrow-tips for Loki because, whilst it wouldn’t kill him, a direct hit could certainly disturb whatever mischief he was up to. But, and Clint reiterated, it wouldn’t _kill him_.

Yet, here Loki lay, collapsed and dead, and, for the sake of Thor and his crumbling face, Clint wasn’t sure how he felt about that.

“Loki?” Thor asked as soon as he came back to himself, immediately jolting forward to drop down at his brother’s side, gripping the man and shaking him, as Steve had done for Tony. “Loki?” He was screaming now, but Loki still wasn’t moving. He looked up to his fellow Avengers, and though he decided that he didn’t feel even a glimmer of remorse, Clint guiltily hoped that Thor wouldn’t meet his eye.

“This…” Thor started, voice chilly with hollow emotion. “Is not correct.”

He turned Loki’s face towards them, and whilst initially Clint had not noticed anything amiss about the face of the god of mischief, now he recognised something was rotten in Denmark. They had recognised him, but a second look and Clint was forced to admit that Loki seemed... _younger_ than before. If that made sense. 

At the Battle of New York, the God of Mischief had been pale and tall and grand and graceful. He was sharp with age, his face etched with faint lines; a vague but real sign of the two-thousand years he had lived. Here, however, there was nothing more than the milky skin of a boy who looked on the precipice of manhood.

“Thor?” Steve asked, whilst Tony drifted down to the floor and started asking loudly what was going on. He closed his faceplate and was talking to JARVIS, but whether the AI replied was not privy to the ears of the other heroes. “What’s happening?”

“I remember this,” the blond Viking said, wide-eyed and clinging desperately onto the deathly silent body of his brother. “This- We were only children. We were in Midgard, hunting down a troll. Loki thought he’d heard something, so he went to look-“

There were noises from the direction of the campfire, and the Avengers quickly retreated into the shadows. Thor took a long moment to follow them, swiping a hair from his brother’s pale face and carefully placing him down. He hid with his fellows in the dark shadows of the trees, waiting for the stomping feet to appear.

“He _remembers_ this?” Clint hissed at Natasha, who shushed him. He could tell in her eyes, however, that she was contemplating his words. After everything they’d experienced recently (aliens, gods, people from the past awakening, continued bastardisations of the Super Soldier Serum with increasingly varied effects), the world was opening up to new and insane things, such as mutants and Hulks and superheroes and supervillains, so time travel wasn’t something that was going to more than mildly aggravate the Avengers. Clint was feeling pretty okay about the whole concept, but that might have been shock. “How far back have we travelled, d’you think?”

Probably about as many years as the gods were old, since, as they watched, a younger version of  Thor burst through the trees into the small space where Loki had been left, hole in his chest, gaping and bleeding. One of the other two that followed him, hair sandy and delicately handsome, dropped to one knee, his right hand still gripping his thin sword as a black-haired warrior with a spiked mace and a young Thor Odinson stared threateningly into the darkness.

Through the quiet, the Asgardian at Loki’s side said, “He’s dead.”

Immediately the younger Thor roared, smashing at the tree directly next to Clint and Natasha with his broadsword. He screamed out to whoever was listening that the culprit come forward; show their cowardly face. Clint would happily admit that whilst he was both an assassin and an Avenger, of which courage or at least a reckless disregard of one’s safety was a prerequisite, he wasn’t man enough to sneak out of the shadows and tell Thor he’d accidentally exploded his brother. Especially when he was toting that impressive sword of his.

“Is this really happening right now?” Natasha whispered to Clint.

“We need to get him back to the healers,” The black-haired warrior spoke, to which Thor only yelled out again, running into the trees. Thankfully, with the cover of darkness, it was difficult for him to see the Avengers in their hiding spots.

“Thor,” the blond said, worry tingeing his words. “Perhaps it is not too late. The healers have ways-“

“He’s dead!” Thor cried, rounding on his friends. “You said so yourself. I will have vengeance for my brother! Was it the troll? I will find it, and I will slaughter it for what it did to him!”

“The wound seems strange,” the dark-haired man said, coming to rest at Loki’s side and drawing a finger just at the edge of the blood. “I’m unsure what on this realm could do this to him. Neither the humans nor the trolls are so advanced.”

They cast around for any sign of a weapon, but the blast had decimated the evidence of Hawkeye’s projectile. It was something that Clint had insisted upon when the SHIELD team of weapons tech developers decided it’d be funny to invent the exploding arrow. Clint had to commend them for their style, though worry about their mindset. Too long stuck in a lab designing things which kill other people wore down on a psyche, and not in any good way.

“There is nothing here,” The blond insisted, even while Thor dithered between storming into the trees on the search of anyone to swing his sword at, and rushing to his brother’s side. “We need to go, else we may lose any chance of saving him.”

After a long moment, Thor placed the sword in its sheath by his hip, bending to carefully cradle the limp body of Loki and hold it to his chest. Loki’s hair was shorter than the Avengers had ever seen it, his cheeks rounder, his eyes dull with death.

“Is there a chance?” The unknown blond asked the other out of ear-shot of Thor, and the dark-haired one quickly nudged him into quiet.

“This is Loki,” he said, but didn’t sound convinced. The blond frowned, held out his sword, and joined stride with Thor. The dark-haired man repeated, louder, to the god of thunder: “This is _Loki_.”

Then they were gone, a sudden burst of colourful light erupting from the skies to scoop up the Asgardians and return them back home. Slowly, when the light disappeared and the Avengers were left alone in the silent woods, they crept down from their hiding places and looked incredulously between them.

“You were telling us a story, Storm Break. I think it implied something about time travel.” Stark nudged Thor. The god was frowning so severely his lips were white, the confusion and emotional strain of the last few minutes mixing in his head.

“That was _you_ ,” Banner reminded him, pointing a finger towards where the Asgardians disappeared. “You were younger, but it was you. Have we really gone back in time, or is this some illusion?”

“Who’s that powerful?” Captain America inquired worriedly, whilst Natasha was a bit more logical.

“Thor said this happened. Without us here, it wouldn’t have. Theoretically, it’s more likely to be real than an illusion.”

“How?” Rogers asked, whilst Stark and Banner started to nod.

“Loki _died_ , like really died, thousands of years ago. Thor said so himself.”

“We never did discover the culprit.” Thor interrupted gravely. He looked around the clearing, nodding to himself. “This place haunted me for many months. Loki… never remembered.”

“So he definitely survived?” Clint wondered, pouting. “I didn’t just change the entire course of the universe or something?”

“He survived. It took days – we had to find his spirit – but the Healers of Asgard could work miracles at this time of history.”

“Can I ask how? Just out of interest. Not that spitting death in the face doesn’t sound attractive, and hey I’ve already done it twice,” Tony Stark said, tapping at his chest. “Maybe me and Loki can swap stories next time we run into each other.”

“He’s _dead_ ,” Thor said for the _n_ th time, getting increasingly agitated as the thunder clouds started to roll in. Stark, safe in his suit and mentally protected by his large blind-spot regarding danger, gestured a hand towards where Loki’s blood was still sinking into the mud.

“Clearly, your brother has never let that stop him.”

“If we know how, we can use it against him if he tries again.” Captain America said carefully, practically, and Thor finally agreed to actively participate in story time.

“At this time, there was no real place in the world where spirits were sent. The Halls of Valhalla had yet to be constructed. Niflheim was where souls would flee when leaving their body. Souls are hardly recognisable, but with training Healers were able to distinguish between them. Loki’s was found, and his body and soul were reunited. It was common practise for those taken before their time, but when Hel and Valhalla were established it became a much more difficult feat. Valhalla was impossible to access, and Hel is strict about who she lets in and out of her domain.”

“That’s wonderful,” Natasha said, only somewhat sarcastically. “Now that we can be sure Loki’s going to be just fine, sure to grow into the upstanding god we know and love, I hate to break the buzz by asking how we’re getting home.”

The Avengers looked between them, grimacing. “Ah.” Thor said.

“We don’t know who brought us here, or why, so we’re stuck for leads. Apparently, it wasn’t Loki, because he’s ‘dead’, and we don’t know any other sorcerers. We’re at a dead-end.” Clint interjected, glad to bring a touch of optimism to the group, all of whom scowled at him. All bar the lovely Natasha, who was frowning up at the leafy canopy.

“An X-Man, or another mutant?” Banner asked, whilst Stark shrugged.

“I’ve not heard of any who can do something like this.” The inventor said.

“We should go back to where we all started.” Natasha suggested, and Steve backed her up. He pointed at Stark when the man began to open his mouth, and then up at the sky. “You and Thor came from up there. The rest of us will go back to where we woke up.”

Stark saluted mockingly, but started the power up in his suit. “Feels nice,” he commented, though it seemed to be at his own arm.

When Thor swung his hammer and shot off upwards, the other four turned tail and retreated back, approximately, to where they had come from. Clint, once again back up in the trees, was directing the group, whilst Banner disappeared behind the shrubbery to his own origin point.

It was like a light turning on and off. One moment he was peeking his head out of leaves, and the next he was bolt up-right in bed, blinking into the darkness.

He batted at a mosquito flickering around his nose, buzzing with interest at his sudden movement, and he looked around the stinking hole of a hide-out he’d woken up in. Oh, right, the mission. He could have sworn he was just on the helicarrier with Tasha and Steve… But then he left on his mission whilst they were assigned on clear-up, and then he’d been sleeping and now he was awake.

“Are you kidding me?” He hissed at himself, checking to make sure he _wasn’t_ in his armour and nor was he covered in grass or mud or leaves from ancient Norway. “A dream?” _Seriously?_

“You alright, sir?” An agent several levels under his own grade asked. He was one of four who had been assigned to help him with this mission (to keep an eye on him, actually – it was going to be a while before Fury trusted that having Loki mess around with his head didn’t damage him irreparably). “We heard you yell.”

He batted them away, frowning now towards his quiver. “I’m fine.”

He swung his legs over the side of the bed as the agent closed the door, reaching out to touch his arrows. He was one down, he counted, as well as one short of explosive tips.

Well, then. That was worrying.


	3. 13 - Asgard

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: abuse is included in this chapter

It happened again, three days later. One minute Clint was in the middle of a delicate operation, arrow threaded and about to let fly, and the next he was scrunching his eyes open and shut at the sudden change in light.

Where before had been long shadows of the late-afternoon sun, now was hardly past midday, and somewhere which was certainly _not_ Earth. If it was, Clint assumed he had to be several years into the future, when Stark Industries had officially stopped taking the laws of physics into account. And had also branched out into architecture.

At least this time the Avengers didn’t start out in six vastly different locations. They were not far from one another, meeting together in a shadowy side-street just across from a much busier, brighter lane. All of them were dazed and confused, but as the oldest member of their group (and theoretically wiser and more knowledgeable) Thor was the one the Avengers first turned to.

The god smiled at them benevolently. “We’re in Asgard.”

“Are we allowed to be here?” Natasha immediately queried after their safety, distantly remembering something Thor had said during their first meet, which went along the lines of: _No mortal can enter the Realm Eternal_. Or else… _something_ would happen. Something vague, but _bad_.

“No helping it now.” Thor answered with a gleam in his eye; a look that apparently ran in the family. “I _have_ wanted to bring you all here. I believe you would all fit in well among my people. Well,” he amended, eying Tony briefly. The inventor beamed at him. “ _Most_ of you.”

“Do I detect a dirty insult slipped in amid compliments?” Stark replied, but Thor ignored him.

The god led them away from the bright bustle of the busy street, down the alley and out the other end. Whilst it had no more light than the other street, its broader width and lower roofs allowed for a more spectacular view. Clint was taken aback by the glorious golden land which was presented before him, sprawling, glinting, glittering.

In the alley he had spotted some far-off structures which were circling themselves, hovering high above the ground, but here he spotted the towering statues of gods of gods. Alongside them, dwarfing them in comparison, was the ancient architecture which gleamed under the slowly climbing sun. In the centre of it all, rising like the pipes of an organ, lay the centrepiece of this impossible city. No doubt it was the place Thor and his family liked to call home-sweet-home.

Breathless, Clint reasoned that none of this could really exist. Not even for the Asgardians. “This is another dream, right?”

“We thought so too,” Stark answered bluntly, cutting through the archer’s daydream as he gestured between himself and Banner. “But then we realised that it was shared, which is creepy on its own. What’s worse is that I _know_ I lost a day somewhere, though I definitely remember it.”

Banner nodded, quick to agree though not quick to explain. Clint didn’t like the fact the two of them had experienced the exact same thing he had. The doctor said, “It seemed too weird to be a coincidence, and you know what our lives are like. _Nothing_ is a coincidence.”

“Brucey is also neglecting to point out the _weirdest_ aspect of this whole situation: _this_ thing.” He pointed to himself, or, more specifically, to the Iron Man armour he was wearing. “I did not own a functioning suit of armour before Norway, and then I woke up out of an apparent ‘dream’, and suddenly there was armour in my lab. Spooky, right? So, when me and Bruce decided we weren’t going mad, our first step was to call you guys and try to establish a pattern. That didn’t happen. I don’t know _where_ you were, but you are buried deeper than St. Oran, and you’re not half as easy to dig back up.”

“Natasha and I were in New York,” Steve replied, somewhat defensively.

“Which’d be awesome if I had a contact number for either of you. We were hoping one of you would have the smarts to get in touch with _me_ , since my number is literally plastered on every Stark billboard in America.”

“Whoa, I was on a mission,” Clint said quickly when Stark turned an accusing eye on him. “Anyway, I didn’t even _consider_ that you guys had the same dream.”

“It wasn’t a dream,” Thor interrupted from the front of the group. “I too believed it to be, but Jane informed me that I had been acting strangely for almost a day and a half, as Iron Man alludes to. That is the sign of magic snatching time from its victim.”

“That’s heartening.” Tony said, whilst Banner looked at his watch, shook it, then turned to the sky.

“Speaking of time, it’s obviously early afternoon here. Is that simply due to Asgard’s differing orbit, or have we time-travelled again?”

“I don’t know what date it is, but it does certainly seem to be many years ago,” Thor pointed at some buildings close to the Organ Palace, which, as far as Asgardian structures went, seemed to fall well within the bell-curve. They weren’t quite standing still, and nor were they even _on the ground_.

“What about them?” Cap asked.

“They were destroyed many years ago in a fire…” he trailed off, staring for a long time at the gleaming palace in the distance. Then he started to run, swinging his hammer.

“Thor!” Rogers warned, but Thor ignored him, fly off fast. Only Tony could keep up thanks to their mutual power of flight, but he let loose a jet stream for the slower of their company to follow. Once they reached the stairs of the palace, Tony stopped, shaking his head.

“Lost him,” he shrugged, but none of them had time to fret. The hulking blond landed heavily beside them, glowering, as if irritated they had fallen behind.

“We have little time,” he snapped as they burst into the corridors.

They ran past several people, guards and staff alike, but no one paid them any heed. Thor seemed in too much of a hurry to notice but Natasha and Clint, seasoned spies, considered it worth worrying about. However, aware of Thor’s growing concern, they weren’t going to be more than suitably wary until it came to bite them in the ass.

“Keep your eyes open for any traps.” Natasha ordered them all, just in case. No one dared argue with her authoritative tone. Thor was the only one who didn’t acknowledge her.

They ran up what seemed to be several _hundred_ sets of stairs, and really it was lucky they were all so fit and healthy. The only one who seemed to be suffering was poor Dr. Banner, who really wasn’t cut out for any of this and had only been dragged into the rag-tag group of misfit toys through his hideously accidental but brilliant scientific breakthrough. Whilst his real-life version of Jekyll and Hyde was amazing and terrifying in turn, and completely invaluable to the team, poor Bruce hadn’t signed up for any of this _running_.

Thor seemed to know where he was going at least, even as he turned down a corner which looked exactly like all the rest. A few thousand years of living somewhere left even the largest palaces utterly demystified, however, and he navigated expertly, stopping – with the Avengers panting behind him – in front of a large golden door also identical to everything other door in this ridiculous building.

The first immediate difference that Clint noticed was that there was a great deal of screaming originating from the other side, echoing dully through the thick doors and out into the hollow corridors.

Thor and Captain America sprang into immediate action, pushing heavily at the set of double-doors and then through the first dark room, a lobby of sorts, towards another, smaller but no less golden door.

The others followed, only the two trained agents bothering to keep quiet, all with weapons cocked.

Hawkeye had an arrow at the ready, completely prepared for the only bastard he assumed was waiting for them on the other side. He’d heard shouting like that before. It had been just the once, he recalled, and completely by accident, but he’d remember that tone even if he reached whatever grand old age he wasn’t destined for.

“Loki,” he hissed at Nat, Banner and Stark overhearing, and the three of them tensed. Steve and Thor were ahead of them, the most moral of the six charging ahead to save whatever damsel was in distress, screaming back at Loki with all her might.

“Brother!” Thor roared as the door slammed open, revealing a scene that not even Clint was expecting.

Thor faltered, but Captain America did not. He sent his shield flying before stopping to pause, aim true, whizzing towards Loki’s head.

The mischief god stood over what should have been an astonishingly beautiful woman, seemingly from Vanaheim. And when Clint said _should have been_ …

Loki, chest heaving with fury, dodged the shield and stepped back from where the woman was bloodied and beaten, slump against a wall. The good majority of her face was black with bruises, and she stared up at Loki with baited breath, waiting with tense anticipation to see what he was going to do next.

Loki himself spent a long time staring from under his brows at the new arrivals, before softly breathing the word, “Out.” He didn’t look away from the Avengers as he said it, but it was the woman who replied.

“What?” She said, and he bared his teeth as he snapped his head around to stare at her.

“Out!” He screamed, grabbing her by the hair at the back of her hair and dragging her up. The Avengers started forward, but he held the woman as a shield and the Avengers were forced to step aside as he pushed her through the open door.

As soon as it was slammed shut Loki swivelled back around, ensuring the door was protecting his back. For a long moment there was insistent banging as the woman shouted in a complicated language through the entrance, pounding at the entrance, but Loki only pressed harder against the golden door and glowered at his guests.

When it fell silent, he finally managed to hiss at them: “You.”

“Us,” Clint said in return, proud at how threatening it sounded.

“Why, Loki?” Thor said, voice thin with shock. “Your wife-“

“ _Wife_?” Stark said, his repulsors whirring threateningly in Loki’s direction. The god clearly didn’t like being cornered, and kept his eyes particularly on Banner, who was clenching his fists about as tightly as he seemed to be holding on to his temper.

Loki started to edge to the left, and the heroes mirrored his movements, making sure he was directly in front of them at all times. All the better to fire at him.

Stark said, “You know, now I’ve seen it, I’m not surprise domestic abuse is on your repertoire, Loki.”

Loki snarled, flinging a knife which pinged off Iron Man’s metal shoulder. It was clearly a warning shot, but was enough to earn one in return.

Loki was thrown to the other side of the room as the repulsors propelled him backwards, his spine cracking against the stone wall as he hit it. The Avengers rushed forward in time to see the green of his magic, a front of an illusion which surrounded his body, shudder away as his control slipped. Clint was the first one to comment on his swollen cheek, and the fact the right-side of his face seemed to be mauled. There was blood _everywhere._

“Red and purple really suits you, Loki. You should consider shaking up your colour scheme like this more often.”

Loki scowled, flinching away when Thor knelt by his side, reaching out to touch his face. He batted his brother’s hand away, snarling. “It’s fine.”

“It does not look fine. She did this to you.”

“The red on her nails may not have been paint,” Loki snapped, his thin veneer of a reassuring smile tilting viciously into mockery and self-flagellation.

Clint snarked, “Beaten up by a girl?”

“You of all people, Barton,” Loki spat, and by ‘spat’, Clint didn’t mean as a way of speaking: he meant _blood_. He tried again: “You should know that gender does not necessitate power.” He eyed Black Widow warily, who tipped her head.

“So she gave back as good as she got?” Steve’s voice was low and dangerous, and he, like Dr. Banner, hadn’t eased their livid expressions. Neither of them quite stopped shaking. Banner was holding on to his temper impressively, but it seemed that at this point, even the smallest thing would push him over the edge. Loki wasn’t the only one in the room whose eyes kept flickering to and from the usually mellow scientist. “Didn’t seem like a fair fight from where I was standing.”

“I’m sure you’ve had a lot of experience with that.” Loki said, voice slick with something that the others missed. He looked straight at Captain America as he said, “Since when is any fight fair?”

“Family should mean safety.”

“Did yours?”

Steve froze, and very sternly pushed the shield on his arm. It was a sign, and it meant in no unclear terms that he was not rising to Loki’s bait. However, as was always the case with the god of mischief and chaos, once he’d found buttons he was more than willing to continue pushing until somebody snapped.

However, as he started to rise up the wall, a sharp retort on the tip of his silver tongue, the air escaped his lungs with a breath of pain, and he slipped down again. His head bashed against the wall as he descended, eyes fluttering in the effort to cling on to consciousness.

“Loki!” Thor caught him, and the god fell into his step-brother’s arms.

“We were fighting-” he said, hand clutching at the area where Tony had hit him with the repulsor. It was the same area, Clint realised, where he himself had blown a hole straight through the god. “We were fighting because- The children-“

The two assassins shared looks, not liking the way Loki’s thoughts were drifting just as his voice was fading. There was too much blood, they realised. The injuries, either initiated or aggravated by Loki’s sudden toss from one side of the room to the other, were causing him to slip away. Again. Just like Norway. It was actually a little bit jarring.

“Loki, keep yourself awake. Think of Sigyn.”

“She won this round,” Loki laughed, blood glinting off his teeth and sliding down his chin. He rested his head heavily against Thor’s armour, and let himself be rocked by his increasingly distressed sibling. “You will tell her, won’t you?”

“No. I will take you to the healers.”

“Don’t bother.” His voice was quiet now, each word weaker than the last. Perhaps he had seconds. Clint had seen enough people die to be able to accurately judge any given lifespan as it inevitably wound down. “She’d have killed me eventually either way.”

“She loves you,” Thor insisted naïvely, but it was very clear that his nostalgic view of yesteryear was quickly fleeing in the fact of reality. Before he’d seen it rose-tinted and gold-lined, but with this revisit of a long and difficult past he was starting to see the cracks in the pages of the history books.

“I do not love her. Why? She is perfect, yet I do not love her.”

“I know.” Thor said, kissing the man on the top of the head as he started to close his eyes. “I know.”

Despite everything, Loki smiled. He opened his mouth to speak, but ended up taking a final breath. He was holding tightly to Thor’s wrist, and Thor had yet to stop rocking.

“Thor,” Steve stepped forward, putting down his shield and reaching out a hand to touch his companion’s shoulder.

Thor said, “How many times must I see my brother die?”

“At this rate?” Stark started, but stopped quickly when Banner gripped his arm. He himself looked a little better. There was nothing like watching a god die to calm you down, Clint supposed, and he meant it. Although he felt bad for Thor, and completely confused over what just happened with the _wife of Loki_ and Loki _dying_ of _internal injuries_ , all of which seemed completely out of his comprehension, he couldn’t say he wasn’t happy to see the Norse patron of mischief suffer.

“Can your healers still do miracles?”

“He’ll have gone to his daughter. She has a claim on his soul.”

“What, so she can immediately return him? Maybe have a spot of tea first?”

Thor, finally stopping his repetitive soothing motions, covered his brother’s hand with his own. “Essentially, yes. That was the way it was before- Well, Loki is not an easy man to get along with…”

“They fell out?” Natasha guessed.

“They are not on good terms, no. But at this point in our history I do believe she is no more than a child. She will return him quickly.” Thor picked up his brother and the Avengers moved aside to allow him to place Loki’s body on the bed. As before, in Norway, he looked delicate and broken. This time, it was quite literal.

“Question,” Stark said, addressing the blond god. “Where were you in all of this? I mean, littler you?”

“I did not hear of any of this. I would have certainly heard if Loki had gotten into a fight with Sigyn – especially one bad enough to do such a thing to her face, or… to him. I can only assume that I was off-world. Likely I was fighting alongside the Warriors Three on a different realm. Or celebrating.”

“Aren’t those the same thing?” Natasha said lightly, as if it would help ease the tension in the room. It even worked to some degree, since Thor managed a weak but genuine smile.

“Had I been here, I would have known. But Loki never said anything, and nor did my father or mother or Sigyn-“

A guard appeared as the doors burst open. He started to say, “My prince,” as they all looked up to see a man draped in the same gold finery as the walls, helmet at a level of ridiculous that was better than Loki’s but worse than Thor’s dainty little wings. He stared at the bed the six Avengers were crowded around, paling quickly, before turning on his heels and fleeing down the corridor.

“Should we go after him?” Tasha suggested, but any movements they could have made were prevented when Clint once again jerked awake, snug inside his own pointedly un-bloody bed in a not-golden room. He was still on his mission, but as before, he only vaguely remembered the previous day when he focused on it hard.

He had missed the shot, distracted and out-of-sorts. His teammates were worrying about him.

The archer scrambled for his phone, speed-dialling Natasha who picked up after three rings and confirmed that she had the exact same ‘dream’.

“Not a dream.” Clint stated, somewhat dumbly, but he had to confirm it to himself. “Damn it, why is it not a dream?”

“Because that’d be too easy.” Natasha answered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay guys, I just wanna say that Sigyn and Angrboda will be involved, but they are there for a reason. Also I hope you don't get put off by this chapter, because I am going to explain the dynamics of Loki and Sigyn's relationship in more detail later.


	4. 3 - Vanaheim

Clint _had_ been happily packing his bags for a trip back to America, but his plans had since been forcibly altered.

“This time I brought along equipment,” Stark exclaimed as they grouped together, waving his arm around.

The Avengers had woken up, this time, somewhere wide-open and green. They were in the middle of a large meadow, where they had all sat down for a group meeting. They were supposed to have one in what Clint was going to dub _the Real World_ , back in the present. But due to clashing timetables (and Clint stuck for another three days on his assignment after the mess up of last time), in the half week since they’d been transported to Asgard, none of them had any one moment which they could all sit down and have a chat. With no sign of movement and the perimeter covered, they decided that now was as good a chance as any.

They mutually agreed that Loki was the common denominator in all of these unnerving trips through time, so the six Avengers were sitting idle, waiting for him to show up. They assumed it was inevitable. There was a large forest lining the entirety of meadow, and they expected him to come bursting dramatically out of it – drama was very much Loki’s style – so they sat in a circle to cover all entrance points.

As far as he could tell, Thor claimed that they were now on Vanaheim. They really were doing some decent amount of sight-seeing through the universe. Clint rather liked it here. It had the country feel, with Asgard’s perfect weather. He could get used to this.

Other than that, however, the god couldn’t say _when_ they were, nor what disaster his brother would drag them into this time. Thor reported that Loki was talented at getting himself and others into trouble, to the surprise of absolutely no one. And since Loki being in danger seemed to be the theme here, it was inconvenient that Thor wasn’t able to use the process of elimination to figure out what was soon to happen. Loki was in trouble too much for him to recount every instance. And, after the incident with Sigyn, Loki’s lovely wife, Thor was coming to realise there were many aspects of Loki’s life which even _he_ didn’t know.

The Avengers still had no idea who was sending them through time to watch Loki’s mistakes, or what the motivation was behind it, but whatever was happening was just one mistake after another. This time, the heroes (begrudgingly) swore not to shoot first, since the last two instances of _questions later_ ended up with Loki dead.

Clint wasn’t complaining about seeing Loki suffer, but seeing Thor upset was starting to get old. Already, the blond was tense with anticipation, not knowing what was soon to come. It made the archer nervous in turn, and tetchy assassins were unwise company.

Stark, oblivious and excited by his own genius, was still talking about his armour. “I finally got around to modifying this bloody thing. It was difficult, because whatever it’s made of is tough as steel. Though I mean that metaphorically since steel is paper in comparison to my gold-titanium alloy. Anyway, we can now accurately measure the surroundings, be it magic or whatever. Because, and I don’t know about you lot, but I’ve noticed one or two _odd goings on_ ,if you catch my drift.”

“What, like the time travel? Yeah, now you mention it, that _is_ a little weird.” Steve returned, sass turned up to level ten, but Tony had more than enough of his own to form a snappy comeback.

“I’m sure you’re used to it, Steve, waking up in one era when you’ve gone to sleep in another, but some of us don’t consider it a day-to-day happenstance.”

Steve glared, but Stark steamrolled over him, mouth running ten times faster than even Clint could manage, and he wasn’t exactly slacking in the chatterbox department.

He said, “When I mean _odd_ , I mean _odder_ than time travel, because that is an _overt_ oddness. Like Alice falling through the rabbit hole. Cliché, dull, I don’t care. What I’m personally interested in, and stop me if I’m boring you, is the fact that _no one_ except goddamn Loki can actually _see_ us. Or, even better, the fact that we seem to be able to manipulate the surroundings, yet they can’t do anything to us. Does that seem weird to you? That seems weird to me.”

“It directly contradicts any laws of physics we know. Our world operates on these rules, and as far as we know so does every other realm, yet when we go back in time, all bets are metaphorically off. For us, anyway.” Banner explained, looking about as excited as Stark. They both shared that same manic gleam in their crazy brown eyes.

“What do you mean no one can see us?” Steve then asked, but it was Natasha who answered.

“The guard in Loki’s room. He looked straight passed us and to his body.”

“Gold star.” Stark praised.

“And about the effecting the environment?”

“It’s just a hypothesis, but I think it warrants investigation.”

“But what is it based on?”

Tony glared. “Science.” He snapped. “Dunno if you’ve heard of it. I’m not sure they had it in the twenties.”

“I’m from the fourties.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. They’re both antiquated and in the past, I get mixed up.”

“Stop it,” Banner interrupted, elbowing Stark. “Anyway, from our stand point right _now_ , they’re both probably in the future.” He continued to Cap: “What we’re basing it on is our luck. So far nothing has damaged us irreparably, and as you all we know that’s a first for us. Also,” he gestured to Tony, who pointed to his shoulder. “Loki threw a knife at him, yet nothing came of it.”

“There wasn’t even a scratch. So, theoretically, if we’re attacked we should fare about as well.”

“And you want to test that, how?” Natasha asked, but her tone suggested she already knew what the manic engineer was thinking. Tony, in reply, grinned broadly and shrugged.

“Guess I’m gonna have to find someone who can see us and challenge them to a fight.”

“You mean Loki.” Thor said.

“I mean Loki.”

Clint shrugged when the other Avengers looked between each other. “If it means Stark standing his ground as a god pokes him full of holes, I say he should go for it. It might even pop his ego.”

“I’ve always thought it’d just deflate with a sort of depressing _pfft_.” Natasha inserted.

“Whoa, now, tone back the insults.” Stark said, but it seemed his own faith in science was winning out over common sense and self-preservation. “But, yeah, that’s totally the plan. Minus the ego-popping thing. You’ll all see that my hypothesis is sound.”

“Or he’ll tear you to shreds.”

“One or the other,” Tony agreed amicably. “How about we stop focusing on the negatives and keep our fingers crossed for the former.”

“I dunno, the latter sounds more exciting.”

“Yeah, but don’t you want to see Loki’s face when he realises he can’t harm us?” Banner interjected, and Clint had to give it to him, he sold Tony’s point in a single sentence.

“I’m in.” The archer grinned, already anxious to see the bewilderment and rage on the god’s face. He could happily fall asleep with that image seared into the back of his eyelids. He’d never sleep ill again. “Hey, Stark, can you grab a picture?”

“A picture? Hawkeye, I’m _recording_ it. For science. And the vine.”

Natasha, facing the forest to the south, suddenly stood, and with it so did the rest of the team. Thor started to move forward before most of them had managed to make it to their feet.

Loki, looking up and spotting them in the distance, started to raise his hand, but paused with outstretched fingers as if thinking twice about waving them over. Well, whether he wanted them there or not, they were already on their way.

As they got closer, they started to realise that Loki was sickly pale. He looked worse than they had ever seen him, and they’d watch him die twice.

“Are you alright?” Steve asked, good-hearted to the end, even despite the hostility and jab at Steve’s troubled childhood which in Asgard.

Loki huffed out a laugh, watching as the others came closer. Thor was at the forefront, quickly in his brother’s face and cupping his jaw in his large hands. Loki closed his eyes, seemingly too exhausted to fight, allowing Thor to turn his head this way and that, as if in search for whatever mysterious illness was plaguing him.

He asked, terrified, “You are dying, brother?”

Loki, scoffing, batted away his fingers and shook his head. “No. No, I’m fine.”

In the same instance, Tony Stark landed in front of him, splitting apart the siblings and raising his face plate to grin at the young god. And he _was_ young. He didn’t seem much older than he had in Norway, except for the way he sagged, worn out and looking only a moment away from falling to the floor.

Stark asked, “Hey, Loki, could you attack me?”

“As much as I’d enjoy that, Iron Man, I do not think I have the energy. Not today.”

“You look like you’re about to drop dead.” Steve inserted, hand half stretched out as if to catch him when he inevitably collapsed.

“As I’ve already assured my brother, I have no intentions of doing that.”

“None do.” Thor said softly, holding tightly on to his brother’s shoulder, refusing to stop touching him, nor let others approach.

“It is really nice here,” Clint commented to the white-faced god, looking around to the horses grazing on one side of the meadow, the birds flying overhead, the gentle breeze disturbing the blades of green grass. “But with you involved, things tend to quickly go to hell.”

“Hell was before, you recall? Many months ago.” Loki said and his smile, as it had been in his bedroom on Asgard, was more self-pity than happiness. He was interrupted from any further weak attempts at reassurance when something nudged him in the back and he was only kept from falling to the dirt due to Thor’s steady grip on his arm.

An animal face, long and dark with bright eyes, peered around from Loki’s back. Loki’s smile widened, miserable though it still may be, as he patted the head of the horse. “Hello,” he said softly, voice wavering with emotion. Thor gripped Loki tighter.

“Is that…?” He didn’t finish his thought, since Loki, as if a direct echo for the exact position of which he died in back in Asgard, turned his face into his brother’s chest for comfort. Thor wrapped his arm tightly around his younger sibling, whilst the horse wondered out from behind Loki’s back.

“This is where you went?” Thor asked, and Loki muttered something unintelligible into his chest plate.

The Avengers, meanwhile, were too busy staring at the dark foal which had emerged into the open and was, very unsteadily, making its way towards Iron Man. They were all especially concerned with counting its legs.

Natasha and Clint, trained agents before human beings, had their weapons pointed just as they had chance to process the horse’s terrified expression and the graceless scramble to get away from them. It tripped over its surplus of legs and squealed, only stopping when Loki moved protectively in front of it.

Even though he looked as if any sudden movement was going to topple him over, Loki already had a knife in hand and a snarl across his face before the two assassins could refocus their aim. Natasha immediately dropped her wrists, holding up her palms in a peaceful surrender.

“Sorry.” Clint said, returning the arrow to his quiver and putting down his bow. “Surprised me, is all.”

“You’d think SHIELD agents wouldn’t be so jumpy. It’s just a spider horse, guys.” Tony joked snidely, as Bruce tried to peer around Loki’s legs to observe the scientific anomaly. That Loki didn’t stab at Iron Man then and there was a miracle, since the god’s scowl suggested it would bring him more pleasure than all the jewels in Asgard. Unfortunately the quick jump to the horse’s defence had left him delicate; he’d exerted too much energy and had to lean back against Thor to keep himself upright.

“It’s beautiful.” Bruce said carefully, coming to Loki’s side and kneeling, looking at the large eyes of the horse and smiling.

“He.” Thor corrected, reaching past his brother to touch the strange creature on the head. “His name is Sleipnir.”

Loki elbowed him, though it was too weak to do any harm. “I have not named him yet. _Sleipnir_?”

Thor grinned as Loki used whatever energy he had left to glower at him. “It suits him, does it not?”

They watched the way the horse cautiously started to edge closer to Dr. Banner, trying to navigate with his excess legs and failing; catching a hoof against an ankle every time he shifted. Whilst he managed to make a forward motion, the constant trip and stumble and catch gave the overall effect of snow tumbling down a mountain face. A mini avalanche in black.

“He’s very handsome.” Thor praised, and he was – like the night sky all over, with a curious glint behind equally inky eyes. His size was almost intimidating – the colt was already almost at Loki’s shoulder, and Loki was not a small man. Sleipnir looked strong enough to do some serious damage if he felt the need. And with that many back-legs… well, it was unlikely he was ever going to find trouble. The creature was already menacing, even as a baby. As an adult… Clint didn’t think too hard on it.

Loki brought attention back to himself by swaying dangerously, and Thor laughed as he wrapped a steadying arm around his sibling’s shoulder. “Perhaps it is time to get you home.”

“A bed, perhaps?” The mischief god requested, eyes becoming unfocused as he slipped into a fantasy of sheets, mattresses and pillows. Then his eyelids fluttered closed, body dropping, and Thor would have caught him if–

This time, when they blinked and refocused their eyes, they didn’t find themselves in their respective beds. Instead, they were up in the trees, much like they had been in Norway the first time they’d been teleported through time, and they were looking down at the ground.

The sudden shift, the feel as though they had been _thrown_ here as opposed to _placed_ , almost toppled Clint from the branch he was crouched on. He managed to catch himself in time to not fall from the tree entirely, but ended up bashing his head on the trunk.

“Hawkeye, are you alright?” Cap asked from a nearby hiding place, and Clint waved an arm. He’d suffered worse before, looking pointedly to his fellow assassin.

Any confusion for why they were suddenly somewhere new was chased away when Loki shot by on the undergrowth. He was running. Running, it seemed, for his life.

“Should we be helping?” Clint asked Natasha, as they started to surreptitiously follow him. Natasha shook her head, gesturing that he keep up instead of ask questions. It was then that a beast, bigger than anything that should be capable of fitting through the trees, darted below them.

“Shit!” Clint swore, as he was almost knocked from the branch he was perched in as the tree swayed dangerously. “What the hell was that?”

Iron Man’s voice called out, “A horse. I think.”

“A _demon_ horse. No wonder Loki was heading for the hills like his ass is on fire.”

Thor caught their attention, breath hitching loudly in his throat, and the Avengers looked over to him for an explanation. He said, “Svaðilfari,” as if that helped.

“Whatever that is, it sounds ominous. Maybe we should go after it.” Stark suggested, shooting out of the trees and into the sky, following after the demon-horse as it ruffled everything from roots up to the treetops.

They lacked the speed where Loki and the horse did not, and the pounding of hooves in the distance was growing fainter. Clint cursed, pulsing head not liking his sudden motions from stillness, and he ended up shouting over the pounding of the blood in his brain. “We need to move faster!”

Thor, flying ahead, fell back to grab Natasha by the waist, and she quickly navigated herself to press against his back. The god then picked up Banner, who, with a surprising burst of strength, pushed himself free of the blond’s impressive forearms.

As he fell, and Steve found himself holding onto Thor instead, Bruce’s skin started to tinge the same colour as the surrounding foliage, his body twisting and growing.

Clint picked up the pace and reached out for Iron Man who had come back down to offer an assisting gauntlet. They failed to lift themselves up the first time, the rise through the canopy catching Clint’s face on something sharp as he sped past, but a burst of power from Stark’s repulsors had them breaking free of the leaves.

Behind them, as they rose above the treetops, a roar burst free and the Hulk bounded out of the forest, following behind his flying companions.

“We’re all accounted for?” Steve, the unofficial leader of the group, asked, just to double check. No one had been left behind, and they were quickly gaining on Loki and the demented beast of a horse which was chasing him.

They were also running out of trees. At the end of the forest they found the very same meadow they had originated in. They set each other down, standing poised and waiting for the green-eyed mischief-maker to burst free, the horse following quickly after him. They would then help defend Loki. For some reason. Because he was in trouble. Yes. That was why. The Avengers helped people in trouble. Even Loki. Clint was trying not to think about that as well.

“Hey,” he said in the moment they had to spare, whilst he was stuck considering things he’d rather not. “D’you think that the demon-steed looked like a big, four-legged version of that creepy spider-horse.”

Thor tensed, tightening his grip on Mjölnir, whilst Natasha rolled her eyes.

“You’re bleeding,” she said in reply, and Clint lifted his hand to his cheek, feeling the injury on his face for the first time since the initial burst of pain.

“That’s great.” He said, but didn’t consider himself having time enough to wipe it off.

Another heavy moment however, and Loki still had yet to appear. Starting to get concerned, Steve and Thor stepped forward, the rest of the team following after them. Iron Man went first, speeding overhead trying to pinpoint the god’s location, whilst the Hulk held back, panting furiously, managing to hold on to his impulse to smash exceptionally well. Clint had to commend the big guy.

Iron Man sent out a signal, and Steve led the way. They made their way through the trees, not bothering with subtlety with the Hulk trailing at the back-end of their party. When they came level with Tony, they spotted Loki several paces to the left, hiding behind a tree with his eyes clenched shut.

His nails were digging into the bark behind him, and his lips seemed to be moving. The sleeve of his arm had been torn open and the flesh beneath was red with blood. Around him a glow of light – green and gold and magical – was forming. But the snap of the Hulk breaking a tree broke his concentration, and as his eyes flew open and focused on them as the light around him faded back into nothing.

“You!” He accused, as he had done in the bedroom on Asgard. “What are you doing here?”

“Saving your ass.” Clint stated, but they got a wave of knives thrown their way for the trouble. Automatically, forgetting Tony and Bruce’s hypothesis when sharp things started flying towards their faces, they all jerked back, closed their eyes or raising their arms to lessen the impact. The six of them took a long while to realise that nothing had managed to slice them to pieces. Lowering any defences, Cap, for example, emerging from behind his shield, they realised that Loki had conjured a magical distraction as he legged it in the other direction. The threatening smack of hooves on the solid forest floor was rapidly getting closer.

“How come every time we try to help, Loki ends up threatening us?” Clint asked as they ran after him.

Steve returned, “Other than this time, when _have_ we tried to help him?”

“Cap’s got a point.  Last time he threatened us it was because Nat and beak-face almost murdered his baby horse.”

“It was _weird_. You can’t blame a guy for being surprised.”

“It was just a _foal_ , bird-brain.” Tony returned, cut stopped short when their path was cut short by the appearance of the wild-eyed, gigantic demon horse. All it was missing, Clint considered as they stared it down, was the sparkle of red in its pupils.

Loki, meanwhile, had completely disappeared, not that anyone blamed him. If their positions had been reversed, Clint would have definitely thrown Loki to the wolves in an attempt to keep his own head.

“Shit,” he breathed, because the monster of an animal could quite easily crush him under one of his giant hooves, and he had four of them. Perhaps not quite as impressive as Sleipnir’s eight, but it really wasn’t a competition. Sleipnir, at least, hadn’t looked like he’d wanted to kill Clint, which was a point in his favour despite any creepy arachnoidian traits.

“Shit!” He repeated, being the closest to the horse, scrambling backwards and aiming an arrow as it started to move forward. An explosive tip hit its shoulder, but when it went off it hardly even made the monstrosity blink.

What did distract its attention, however, was the roar and leap of a great green beast, bigger than even it was. The Hulk slammed straight into the horse’s side, throwing it off the Clint-Squishing course.

The two grappled for a long time, the horse lashing out with its hind legs, but each kick bounced off the Hulk as all of the green guy’s blows only glanced over the horse’s pitch black coat. They all tried, as a team, to take the monster down, but if even the Hulk wasn’t able to do anything then there was only so much time they had left before they had to leg it and hope that whoever was pulling them in and out of time would extract them sooner rather than later.

And Loki? Well, he seemed to have been faring better all on his own. If he was as smart as Clint knew he was slimy, he’d have used the distraction to get the hell out of dodge.

However, it didn’t take long to realise that the horse, whilst not stronger, was definitely quicker than the Hulk was. It could fight well enough to stand its ground and then some, pushing Banner’s alter ego back far enough that Thor had to take over. Thor was no push-over either, one of the few things in the world to also come out of a fight with the Hulk only moderately battered, but fighting Svaðilfari was no better than going head-to-head with the gamma-radiated doctor.

Stark’s hypothesis, meanwhile, as the god of thunder wrestled something three times the size of him, was not proving to have any basis in reality. It was very clear that the environment _was_ in fact able to inflict damage and no shortage of permanent effects on their fragile mortal bodies. Clint’s evidence was the cut on his cheek, opened up again when he’d fallen to the ground in an attempt to get away from the monster of an animal.

It was starting to get to a part of the battle which, in the archer’s experience, tended to suggest the direction of who was going to turn out on top, and despite the Avengers’ best efforts, it seemed that the horse was maintaining the upper hand.

Clint, having stopped trying to blow the bastard up as soon as it became obvious he was doing more harm to his allies than to their enemy, had realised quickly that the explosives weren’t the only arrows which didn’t do anything against their foe. An electric shock made it pause once, but otherwise had no effect. Clint felt useless, too scared to physically approach and use his combat training and too ignorant on what the horse could and couldn’t withstand that he couldn’t try any creative thinking.

Just as he was starting to lose hope, the horse stopped dead, freezing the Avengers along with it. They tensed, waiting to see what had caught its attention more than the fight, assuming it would be just as bad, if not worse, than the stallion they were failing to best.

The creature’s nostrils flared, ears twitching, eyes rolling back and forth as it tossed its head, finally stopping to stare at gap in the trees.

Clint, with great trepidation, followed its eye line, scared of what he’d find.

To his great despair, it was yet again another horse, this one only slightly smaller than the beast before them. It was as black and beautiful as Clint admitted the demon horse was when it wasn’t trying to kill them, and had appeared through the trees to the left.

The new addition froze when it caught sight of Svaðilfari, before it turned tail and ran back where it came from. Hulk tried to stop the monster as it made an easy leap over the heroes, chasing after the female of its species.

In the silence that it left over, as the Hulk started to chase after it but failed to keep pace, Clint could hear the trembling of the heart in his chest, and he deflated, defeated, dropping to the floor and staring up to the leaves overhead.

Tony and Thor stood around them, whilst Cap kneeled to his left and Natasha sat down on his right. All of them felt exhausted. The Hulk was still looking for his escaped foe, but didn’t drift too far from the group.

“That was lucky, a mare appearing just in time like that.” Clint said after he caught his breath, and this time, instead of rolling her eyes, Natasha punched him in the arm. Thor, as before, tensed. Clint was overcome with the idea that maybe he’d said something stupid. He forgave himself, the bash on his head having since turned into a major headache, exacerbated by the epic horse battle of whatever the fuck year they were in. It wasn’t comfortable to think right now.

Then his brain finally caught up with him. “Wait, was that- _Loki_?”

“I’d always wondered why Loki chose to become a female horse in order to distract Svaðilfari from Asgard.”

“He first tried to lure it away with blood,” Natasha pointed out, having seen the self-inflicted wound on Loki’s arm. She looked to Clint, the blood which had settled on his cheek from his earlier injury. He had been the reason Loki’s original plan had failed. “When it came across us, Loki had to find a different way of catching its attention.”

“He protected us?” Forgive Clint for the disbelief in his tone, as he was hesitant to immediately believe that anything Loki did was not for himself. He didn’t think Jane Foster had perceived what she thought she did on Svartlfheim, and his opinion hadn’t changed since no matter how many Lokis he’d seen since then.

“Potentially,” Natasha said, coming to save Clint’s world-view. She turned to Thor. “More likely it was that he didn’t want anything to jeopardise the mission. I’ve read the stories. It was _his_ task to distract the horse, wasn’t it?”

Thor shook his head, but it was not to deny her inquiry. “Whilst it was charged to him to ensure the builder would not complete his task else Asgard lose more than we were willing to pay in a wager, it is unlikely he’d sacrifice himself when there are other, stronger people around to do that for him. He either did not trust us to do it, or he did not _believe_ we could distract the horse for the adequate amount of time. The punishment awaiting him if he failed to do this task would be more severe than anything even Svaðilfari could inflict upon him.”

“That makes me worry what your justice system looks like.” Steve replied honestly. Thor grimaced.

“We may seem brutal to you, but our punishments are not only matched to a crime, but they also increase with each instance. That Loki’s punishments are so severe is because he brings them upon himself.”

“A bit harsh there, Thunderbird.” Stark said, but Thor snarled at him.

“Do not mistake me, Man of Iron,” he snapped. “I love my brother and I do not enjoy watching him suffer, but everything he does is in direct conflict of our father and he knows what his actions will inflict, yet he proceeds to do them anyway.”

“Maybe you should sit down and hash out _why_ Loki keeps on doing it, in spite of the punishment?” Stark theorised, shrugging when Thor scowled at him. “Just something to consider. You know, for when your brother inevitably survives whatever you think has killed him this time.”

“He was run through with a sword, as my mother was. Having died in battle, he will have gone to Valhalla, and from there he will find no escape.”

“Your mum-?” Clint started, but the words were said out into the darkness as he found himself undressed and under a blanket. In front of him, Natasha stared back. Clint breathed out.

“What just happened?”

Natasha shook her head, pressing herself closer, slipping a leg between in between his, hooking her ankle around his calf. Her nails dug gently into the skin of his back, and he tightened his arms around her waist. They pressed their foreheads together tiredly, despite the echoes of a false memory spending the last few hours doing nothing at all.

Clint distantly remembering arriving back in the USA a few hours before, then sneaking into the SHIELD sleeping quarters that Nat and Steve were sharing. They were sleeping at opposite walls in cold single beds, and Clint had been quick to clamber into Natasha’s. That he snuck up on the Black Widow, and that she hadn’t put a knife in him, both proved that it was time which had been taken from the both of them whilst they’d been placed in a completely different realm.

It seemed so long ago, and they had run through the forests of a completely different realm since. Clint glanced over to Steve, who had woken up as they had and then turned his back and gone back to sleep, and wondered whether they should all have that Real Life meeting sooner rather than later.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kay, 2 announcements:  
> 1 - I'm gonna be moving onto a schedule which I (hopefully) won't deviate from. I should be updating on Wednesdays and Sundays, but obviously with tomorrow being Xmas I'm just gonna give you this now. So there you go.  
> 2 - I'm also going to be adding titles to chapters once I get everything sorted, which theoretically should help everyone keep track when the fic starts to get longer. However these may be subject to change, so if you're reading as I update I'm gonna pre-emptively apologise. I'm aiming to sort that out before I update on Sunday.  
> Thanks for reading everyone!


	5. 12 - Svartlfarheim

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Didn't get the chapter titles sorted, but I will do! When I do, I'm pre-warning everyone that they might be edited since this is a WIP.  
> I also cut the legend of Sif's hair in 2, for reasons to be explained later.

When it happened for the forth time, none of the Avengers were even surprised to blink once and become misplaced in time and space.

A quick climb to the top of the mountain with Thor confirmed that they were in the treacherous terrain of Svartalfarheim or some other hideous sounding name.

According to the frequent realm-hopper of their company, there were two sides of the bleak world: One was an ancient battle ground which no one ever went to, the land decimated in some ancient war, and the other was the home of the dwarves who seemed about as happy to play host to them as the Avengers were to be around such brazen creatures. None of them spoke a hint of English, though Thor was capable of communication. _The All-Speak_ , the blond told them.

They left quickly (having appeared in the middle of the dwarves’ dinner) and were trying to get to the bottom of the impossibly tall mountain in which the natives resided.

“So, explain it again,” Steve was asking Thor, just to make sure he had their last Loki Experience straight in his head before they ventured blindly into the new one. “I’ve read the mythology Natasha directed me to in regards to Svaðilfari and the master builder, and it was Loki’s fault the wager was so high, but _not_ his fault the wager existed?”

“It certainly _was_ his fault.” Thor argued, frowning. “When we were young my brother had a taste for dangerous gambles and would draw not only himself but other people into them. The instance with the builder involved the entirety of Asgard.”

“What about now?”

“His urge to throw down impossible bets has faded in more recent years,” Thor admitted, grimacing. “Likely this is to do with the wagers starting to demand more from him than he was willing to pay. A price like the moon or the hand of Freya does not concern him as much as does his own well-being.”

Clint knew the trickster was nearby. Whilst suffering Loki invading his mind hadn’t _connected_ them mentally, nothing so spiritual, it certainly heightened the archer’s awareness of his presence. If that Spiderman kid had spidey-senses, then the assassin had assassy-senses.

Steve was good to ask for clarification. At least someone was making an effort to try and understand what was happening to them all.

“Hey, this has been bugging me,” Stark interrupted, voice teetering off for a moment as they navigated a particularly slippery patch of rock. Iron Man was one of the two who were in no danger, even in the face of losing their footing, but the six of them had all vowed to look out for each other as they descended the treacherous terrain.

“What’s on your mind, Tony?” Steve replied, but Stark was pointing at Thor.

“I know this was kinda a while back, but when we went to Asgard you mentioned a fire and then jolted towards your brother’s room like your tushy was alight. Are you trying to tell us he started that fire?”

Thor confirmed, “No one found out what happened, but the flames began in Loki’s quarters. He only just managed to escape and suffered for many months with the healers. There was something strange about the fire which both almost completely destroyed him and was practically impossible to dampen.”

 “So _not_ your brother?”

“If it was, it was likely accidental. He has always been fond of fire, so it is not unreasonable to assume that when playing with its properties he lost control.”

“Doesn’t seem like him,” Clint muttered, not meaning to be overheard, but he ended up sharing a particularly knowing look with Thor.

“It is in the past,” The blond exclaimed, though he rethought this as he considered the new likelihood of being able to touch the elusiveness of history. That they were being teleported between, apparently, significant moments in Loki’s life, meant that suddenly the past could very well be the future.

“Just being prepared,” Stark stated. Better to know what was coming ahead.

They had, the day after they’d woken up from the last experience of time travel and a horse, called an urgent get-together in the Avengers Tower, each with stiff drinks and too many questions left unanswered.

As a team, five of them had turned on their sixth member, and Thor had startled when they’d asked for Loki’s complete history.

The god had then scowled and called it an invasion of privacy, and _don’t you know how long Loki has lived – he is only marginally younger than I am._ The Avengers agreed that it was impossible for Thor to know and remember everything. It was likely that they were going to be in for a surprise when they appeared on some new and exciting realm, since there had been a large gap in Loki’s life when he’d been estranged from his family and, in turn, Thor.

But they had also learned a lot about Loki in their impromptu interrogation, and even Clint had to admit the guy had led an _interesting_ life. It was the only word he was willing to use to describe it, lest he start waxing lyrical. It would have been difficult _not_ to empathise, had it not been for the fact the damned bastard hadn’t gouged around in his brain first.

To hoot his own horn, Clint knew that was doing a damn sight better at remaining bitter than the others. When told of Loki’s many missteps and punishments, Cap, Banner, even _Stark_ had been touched, at least a little. Natasha… well, Natasha’s was the best poker face Clint had ever seen and he worked with spies for a living, so it was hard to tell.

“Down here!” The red-haired spy hissed, having been scouting ahead, pointing down a cliff-face. Immediately below was a narrow ledge and a steep drop, and Loki was leisurely walking along it. Clint could tell why Natasha had decided to keep quiet rather than draw any attention, since the god was narrow-eyed with suspicion for a pack of dwarves which were making a path towards him.

“Mister Brokk,” Loki, half-hidden by the expensive furs cast around his shoulders, addressed one of the two dwarves which stepped forward aside from the others. “What did you call me here for?”

“Did your brother follow?” The dwarf asked in a language the Avengers could understand (Clint _knew_ that they could speak the All-Speak. They had been laughing at the humans who had been desperately attempting to communicate, even if that had only been Steve and Tony).

Loki’s eyes were mere slits now, aware something was afoot. He wasn’t the only one.

With the gift of hindsight, Thor seemed to know exactly where and when they were in history. He started to swing his hammer to fly down to his brother’s side but Steve and Natasha, quickly joined by their other teammates, were the quick to react, stopping Thor in his tracks before he could gain traction.

“What’s happening?” Natasha asked softly in his ear, and Thor struggled for a long moment, trying to peer down to his brother. Oblivious, Brokk and Loki continued their razor-edged discussion, each word charged with distrust. Clint had turned his attention to Thor to keep him steady, a difficult feat for even the five of them (including the iron strength of Tony Stark’s armour), so missed the transition between terse sentences and screaming.

The Avengers’ grip on the god of thunder slipped whilst their attentions were startled, and they all scrambled to grab him again, managing to pull him back just before he reached the edge of the cliff-face and tumbled off with them all attached.

Clint, having latched on to his arm, got a face full of nothingness gaping out in front of him, and he focused instead on the narrow slip of rock below which held Loki and the assembly of dwarves. He saw Loki, he met his eyes, and pulled sharply on Thor’s arm.

“Get me loose!” Thor snapped, but Clint dug his nails into his bicep and turned himself to meet Thor’s eyes. When he had the god’s attention, he shook his head.

“No. Not now.”

Clint had since come to terms with the fact his presence seemed to relax Loki when they had worked together (though Clint wouldn’t call mind-control ‘working together’. He preferred the term ‘mental hijack’). The archer had decided that it was because, and he’d take it to his grave, the two of them were very similar. They were both very efficient if unusual soldiers, at least at the time, and they were very forward thinking. They came up with inventive new ways of achieving their goals, simply because otherwise they’d fail. For both of them, failure came at a cost with they could not afford.

Both of them also wanted a touch of dignity. Clint couldn’t say Loki deserved any after what he had done to him, his friends and his planet, but when a swarm of dwarves held a man down and drew a needle through his lips, even _he_ needed some privacy.

Clint thought he knew Loki well enough to know that he wouldn’t want Thor to see him so weak. That the archer had spied him when he was defenceless was bad enough for his pride.

Honestly, Clint thought he should be focusing more on his sewn-up mouth than his bruised ego.

Thor, as was always going to happen, eventually broke free. By this point the screams had long since stopped, briefly having turned into muffled noises, half-strung words, before disappearing completely. The blond god glowered at his teammates as they followed him to the ledge.

Loki was gone. The dwarves were marching in another direction, talking amongst themselves.

The Avengers saw the look on Thor’s face. They managed to grab hold of him again, just in time to save the natives from a messy fate at the end of a temperamental hammer.

They’d put up a fight, the dwarves were tough little bastards, but that meant little in the face of godly rage.

“Let’s find your brother.” Clint suggested, and Thor flew up into the sky, Iron Man following. The others were left to make their own way down, Natasha hanging back to help Bruce clamber down the rocky face whilst Cap went ahead and jumped of the edge, as he had a bad habit of doing. Clint made good use of his grappling hook arrows – a contraption which had saved his ass one too many times – and started hopping down the cliff-face.

At the bottom they almost stumbled over him, lost in the middle of the heavy weather. Loki, the God of Mischief, was sitting slump against a large rock. His fur cloak, which he had used as a barrier between him and the world he looked down upon, was now splattered with blood. It had been cast aside in disgust and Loki sat to the far right of it, knees curled to his chest and eyes blankly staring forward.

The blood was still dripping down his face, and it had been smeared down his jaw. He had tried to wipe it away, but it didn’t cease. His long, red-stained fingers were dusting absently over the leather thong, but his expression suggested he’d already tried pulling at it, clawing, cutting. There was nothing else to do now but prod and be miserable.

“What did you _do_ to them?” Tony gaped, propriety and tact not in the Stark family dictionary. He lifted his face plate and bent into a crouch, snapping Loki back to the present with his clunks and stomps. “Oh yeah, you can’t answer. Nice piece of thread you’ve got there. Want me to have a go at getting it out?”

Loki’s face was a storm which only got heavier when Thor started forwards. “Loki-“ the older god said, but Cap threw an arm out to his chest to stop him. Loki looked down into his knees, as if it would help him fade out of existence. It was all very pathetic.

“Seriously, what happened?” Tony asked, this time looking to Blond ‘n’ Hammer-Happy.

“There was a bet,” Thor started absently, staring at his brother who seemed to be trying to completely disappear into the stone behind him. “That the dwarves couldn’t get into the weapons vault on Asgard. Loki had believed it to be a good idea at the time – no one knew how to enter the weapons vault. But they did and they demanded Loki’s head for it.”

Tony turned a critical eye on Loki, but was mostly joking when he hypocritically stated: “You should really stop gambling.”

“I’ve heard that story.” Captain America interrupted. “Well, not those words _exactly_ , but the bit about the head. He said they couldn’t harm his neck, so he got away with it.”

“Except he was sent back to retrieve the items they stole. He returned with…” He wasn’t even blinking through the intense stare he focused onto his brother.

Loki finally looked up from glowering at Tony, seeming a bit more composed even through his anger. He threw a large leather satchel towards Thor’s feet, and as it skidded across the ground the flap opened to reveal its content.

“Myur-myur?” Clint asked, as the hammer dug into the mud. There was also a ring which Thor labelled as ‘Draupnir’ and a long staff which was called Gungnir. “Didn’t think that was possible for him to hold.”

“Perhaps now is not the best time to explain,” Thor said, glancing to his already irate brother. The god seemed even more fractious now, eyebrows crossing in fury, unable to question or protest. He wanted to know what was being kept from him, confused over something, but Thor didn’t cave.

“Alright, so why these things?” Clint asked instead. Loki’s frustration would have been funnier, he considered, if he hadn’t been shaking with pain, clenching his fingers into his legs hard enough to tear through the fabric.

“They were three of six items made by the dwarves. The others were not in the vault, therefore they could not be stolen.”

“This sounds like less of a wager and more like childish baiting,” stated Natasha, making most of the company jump as she and Dr Banner appeared through the fog. One of the few who hadn’t been surprised by their abrupt appearance was Loki. He narrowed his eyes at her. She returned the cold stare easily, not once giving way. “Thor says it seemed like a good idea when it was made, and perhaps it was – even if you lost, you had a wordy way out _and_ you had a way into the weapons vault. But it sounds like you overheard the dwarves saying they wanted their magical gifts back, their prized possessions, and you decided to string them along for some pointless bit of information. It blew up in your face, as usual, but in the long run, it’s a smaller price to pay then having your head chopped off.”

Loki didn’t say anything. But then, that wasn’t so much of a surprise. If his mouth hadn’t been frozen with agony, perhaps he might have smiled.

Stark interrupted, drawing the god’s attention back to him. “Hey, I’m very serious about that offer. Of the, uh, the unthreading. I can’t imagine not being able to talk.”

He spotted and correctly interpreted Loki’s look. “Ouch, that smarts. Or, it would, if you could actually say words. Look, if you don’t trust me, I’ll even explain it to you.” He scooched closer to the mischief-maker, baring the underside of his wrist. He flipped open the casing to show the wires beneath, starting to point and elaborate.

Loki should feel honoured. In the universe there were only an elite number of people who’d ever had any Stark Tech explained to them, even if it was only one small laser. The number of individuals alive who knew anything about those suits amounted to one, and that was the ass who developed them in the first place. Now, Clint supposed, the ass-count had gone up to two.

Thor collected together the objects and packed them away back into the satchel, putting them gently by Loki’s side. The man winced away from his brother, even when Stark was trying so hard to divert the prince’s attention. Thor quickly backed off.

“What is the point of all this?” Cap asked the rest of them, not for the first time. He stepped away from where Tony was successfully keeping Loki from eavesdropping, lowering his voice as he said: “Why are we going through Loki’s timeline?”

Bruce quietly suggested, “Perhaps we’re meant to help him out of situations like this?”

“We’ve killed him twice,” Nat said, disputing the point.

Clint agreed with her. “And last time, even if we didn’t actually _murder_ him, we just aggravated the situation.”

“We don’t know that,” Steve returned. “If we hadn’t been there to help, perhaps the horse may have done something worse to him.”

“Worse than give him a feisty, frolicking foal?” Clint asked, eyebrow raised. “Like what?”

“Like _kill_ him?”

“We cannot be sure of our impact upon my brother’s life,” Thor said sternly, cutting across all of them. “All we do know is that we are being sent to critical moments his timeline for apparently no reason.”

Clint looked over to Loki, where the god was still curled up protectively, watching Stark with sharp, distrusting eyes as the inventor offered, though it could be easily misconstrued as a threat, to point a thin laser at his face. Loki was pushing him away.

After this gory incident it was probably going to take a while for him to relearn how to trust anyone, Clint considered. The thought was followed by a notion more ominous: _what if he never succeeded_?

He sighed loudly. “Looks a bit pathetic, doesn’t he? Might be better to just put him out of his misery.” He was joking, although not completely. Loki looked so droopy with self-pity and disgust they could almost pour him into a bowl and serve him on toast. Euthanasia seemed the more merciful option.

As he said it, however, he instantly regretted it. Thor’s face darkened so rapidly that the archer took a step back, afraid of what the god could do with a little motivation. Even without his hammer, Thor cut an imposing figure.

But he quickly realised that it was not Clint whom Thor’s thunderous face was directed towards.

“We’re being sent to places where Loki is vulnerable,” Natasha reworded the god’s earlier statement with a sudden flash of insight, just before Clint had his own breakthrough. Banner put a steady hand on Thor’s bicep.

Cap was just that little bit behind them all, but only seconds passed before his frown turned into wide-eyed surprise and then flashed to dark resentment.

Before anyone could say anything out loud, Cap put a finger on his lips and pointedly looked at the four circled around him until they obediently copied. They felt like naughty children just stepped out of preschool, being scolded by their mother. Or, in this case, Captain America, which the Avengers tended to equate to meaning the same thing.

“We can’t talk about this now. We’ll meet the day after we wake up in Stark Tower, at nine AM. No questions.” He glared at Clint when the man stuck his hand in the air.

“Just wanted to say you might want to make it ten. Or eleven. Or six PM. You know what Stark’s like.”

“Too bad.” He snapped, gesturing to Thor, who was practically shivering with repressed rage.

The god excused himself silently, stepping aside and heading towards a near-by mound of rocks. They cracked and smashed as Thor let loose a roar and swung his mighty hammer. The two who hadn’t been privy to their conversation startled at the sudden change in demeanour. Loki, in particular, looked surprisingly intimidated. Clint was going to save that little titbit for tomorrow’s communal discussion.

“You alright there, big man?” Stark called out, but received no answers. He shared a bewildered look with Loki, who shrugged. He might have scowled under all that blood. He definitely grimaced with the shooting pain of attempting to move his face.

“Hey, maybe you should get that looked at by the royal physician or whatever. Perhaps they’ll have something I don’t. Like… more than just rudimentary medical know-how. Or morals.” Tony suggested, hoisting himself up and holding out a gauntlet to help Loki to his feet. The god offered him a scornful look in reply, batting aside the gesture of goodwill, pride already battered enough. He helped himself, unfolding like a paper crane, stiff and awkward, but he certainly proved his point: even in such a state, he was determinedly, pig-headedly independent.

Clint didn’t know how many years were between now and the young man who had collapsed in his brother’s arms in a field on Vanaheim, but even though physically Loki looked no different, there was an age to him, a stress, which made him seem that much older. He probably was.

“Are you going to be okay to get home?” Stark asked, wrapping his hand around Loki’s upper arm before swiftly changing his mind. The god’s wince hit Clint like a freight train, even at 20 paces. Stark, who didn’t hate the alien quite as keenly, who was standing face-to-face with the sewn-up prince, almost hit himself in the face with the speed he retracted his arm.

Loki wasn’t the only one here to have been held down, Clint remembered. He wasn’t the only one to be trapped in an inescapable situation with nothing but the last threads of his wits to help him through.

Stark quickly slipped behind his face-plate, his eyes far too expressive to keep himself as much of a secret as he liked to think he was. If the archer could read him like a book from all the way over here, then Loki would have memorised the entire text that was _A Cheap Trick and a Cheesy One-Liner_ Stark.

Loki thrust a finger at him threateningly. It didn’t seem angry, merely pointed. _Don’t follow me_.

They watched him go silently, before Stark said, “That went well,” his mechanical voice betraying no emotion.

After a tense moment, when Thor stopped his hissy fit to forlornly stare after his brother walking into the distance like a love-struck teenager yearning after some impossible crush, Clint said: “We’re having breakfast on you, Stark. Make sure there’s coffee.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed! Please drop me a comment!


	6. 21 - New York

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoops sorry I was a bit late. Sherlock was on.

The next morning, Clint was bright and early to arrive at what he was lovingly starting to dub ‘Avengers Tower’. Tony hated the name; a sure-fire way of ensuring the archer would keep insisting on it.

Clint wasn’t the first one there, but he was a close second.

He was surprised to see that it was Tony who answered the door rather than the click of JARVIS automatically unlocking the latch, or the whirr of one of Tony’s appropriately-named university contraptions, DUM-E and Y-U.

The engineer greeting him with a tetchy, “Remind me to never make friends with assassins again.”

“Tasha beat me, then?”

“Are you really surprised?”

“Not particularly,” Clint acknowledged, because she hadn’t bothered to wake him up that morning. They had made a game out of it since the first time they had worked together. When both had to be up and ready they liked to wake independently and try not to rouse the other. Natasha won more often than not.

Whilst the both of them, after been exhausted from last night’s time-travel, would have preferred to stay in bed until Hill noticed their absence and booted them from their bunk, Clint and Natasha had decided that it was better to face Tony’s early-morning grump than Cap’s ire.

From what they could extract from his low muttering, the inventor had not shared the same mind-set. It had been JARVIS who had sensibly decided to drag Tony out of bed upon the first ring of the doorbell, incessant to the point where Tony would have to pull the plug on his AI to stop the alarm.

Clint found Natasha lounging in the couch, watching the sky lighten over the sprawl of Manhatten. It was very beautiful from all the way up here, even if Tony did not appreciate it.

The inventor was clearly agitated, pacing to and fro and blocking their view of the wall-length windows. Clint had to physically pull at him when he ignored Natasha’s snappish warnings that he sit his ass _down_.

It didn’t last very long. Tony pulled himself up and started moving again almost as soon as the two SHIELD agents had calmed. Clint just sighed when Tony finally rounded on them.

“When are the other two getting here?”

“Nine, supposedly.” Clint looked at the clock to see it was hardly quarter to the hour. “Seriously, Tony, will you stop moving. You’re making me queasy.”

Natasha asked, “What are you anxious about?”

“Nothing.” Tony said, ignoring their frowns for only a moment before conceding. “Well maybe something.”

“What?”

He took a breath, then finally said to the ceiling: “When Thor and Captain Red-White-and-Blue get here, distract them with the magical light-box of wonder or something, would you dear?” JARVIS replied to the affirmative, though he remembered to sound affronted for the sake of the insulted absentees.

“They’re from a different culture, not stupid,” Natasha deigned to remind the inventor on the AI’s behalf, whilst Clint thought to ask why they would need distracting at all.

“You two are coming with me,” Tony announced, nodding his head with a steely look of determination. “I’m waking up Bruce.”

Clint started to laugh, glad to see that Stark’s humour was starting to show the longer he stayed awake. However, he was the only one. Tony certainly didn’t seem amused, eyes dark and mouth thin.

“You’re serious.”

“As serious as my dwindling faith in the scientific community thanks to time-travel and its blatant disregard of physics.” Tony said gravely.

“But I haven’t even had coffee.” Clint bemoaned.                                                    

\--

“So,” Tony said lightly as they all strolled to their impending doom in brown-curls and an adorable set of pyjamies. “What’s this meeting about?”

Clint opened his mouth, but was stopped by an elbow in his gut. Natasha shook her head sharply, and the archer nodded. Given that second to think, he realised that he wasn’t sure what he wanted to say.

Whilst under normal circumstances he was happy to blurt out the truth, gory details and all, he was smart enough to notice the small instances which suggested that, with Tony, he had to adopt a more delicate touch.

Instances like the inventor sitting down next to a certain God of Mischief and baring the underside of his wrist. Tony could make a number of excuses as to why he had so freely offered _Loki_ information about his suit, such as: it was just a little laser, nothing too dangerous, or he was in too much pain to really follow what Tony was saying, or it wasn’t like he was going to understand the technical jargon anyway. Tony didn’t necessarily know that, but if it made him feel better then Clint was just going to sit back and wait until that wilful ignorance blew up in his face.

It wasn’t only that. He may have been happy to offer up information to Loki so easily because the god had been suffering. Prideful and almost jealously guarding the threads in his mouth, it was a pathetic dominance display which Loki utilised to try and prove that he could look after himself. It wasn’t uncommon to see the same sort of behaviour from Tony.

Because Stark had suffered too. From the cave in Afghanistan all the way up to almost losing Pepper Potts in the Mandarin incident, Iron Man had gone through one ordeal after another with little time to recover. Clint had been put through enough shit himself, but he at least had the luxury of years between each happening.

From Tony’s perspective, it wasn’t impossible that he saw himself in Loki. Ignoring the fact that they were both wily and sly and much too clever for their own good, jumping from trauma to trauma, even if they were spaced decades apart in real time, made it seem like Loki was handling too much at once. Dying and coming back from dying and having a mutant child with a demon horse and getting his lips sewn together was all bad enough individually, but put them together with no allowance for the Avengers to catch their breaths… well, inevitably, someone would start getting emotional.

Very few people would stick the tag ‘emotional’ on Tony Stark, but of all of them, he was the quickest to empathise. He had clung onto Banner like a leech from the moment they’d met, picking up on his discomfort and attempting to right it. He’d accepted Clint into the group without question, applying nicknames like he hadn’t been involved in aiding the enemy (even if it was unwillingly). He had accepted them all with little struggle, in the end. The worst one had been Cap, but once they got the lingering childhood resentment out of the way they were only mildly snarky with one another.

Ultimately, if any one of the group had to turn out to be hyper-sensitive to Loki’s struggles, Tony was the major contender.

Not to mention a certain _strained_ look about him when Tony had tried to hide when Loki had batted away his help, shaking with pain and yet still too superior to accept any assistance.

Natasha and Clint hadn’t spoken about what was starting to unfold before their keen eyes, but they had both come to the same conclusion that they weren’t going to mention it. At least until it became a problem.

“Better we tell you over coffee.” Natasha said, instead.

Tony glared at them suspiciously, but allowed them to keep their secrets. The rest of the way to Bruce’s rooms was peaceful, except for the issue that Dr. Banner had been gifted a floor all to himself which Clint immediately complained about.

“I have a crappy little apartment in what is for all intents and purposes _New Jersey_ , and when I’m not there I’m stuck in a tiny bunk in the helicarrier. How come Banner gets an entire floor in the Avengers Tower?”

“It’s called _Stark_ Tower,” Tony corrected, which lead neatly into his next point. “As as the name suggests, I’m the one calling the shots. I like Bruce. He doesn’t drag me out of bed before midday for no good reason.”

“There _is_ a reason,” Natasha assured him, but he tutted shortly, shaking his finger.

“Not telling me presupposes no reason at all. Bruce, therefore, is my tower-mate of choice. It’s about trust, guys. I know that’s a tall order from _assassins_ , but we’re all one big, messed-up family now.”

“Really?” Clint said, baffled to hear those words from _Stark_ of all people. “We’re a family?”

“No, not really.” The engineer scowled, pointing a finger as he stopped in front of a door. “And don’t ever call my building Avengers Tower again.”

Clint put up his hands in surrender, but didn’t make any promises. There was no way he was going to stop when it got the genius all riled up like that. He only just managed to bite back on a smile as Tony stepped into Bruce’s room, footsteps gentle, having gathered up all his recklessness and channelled it into his feet.

“Whoa, shit, sorry!” Tony said, reeling backwards as he slammed the door shut again just as Clint was about to follow him in.

The archer, an assassin by trade, was on the defensive within a heart-beat, stance tense with readiness, willing to shoot anything in the cornea at fifty meters, lack of weapons be damned.

Tony shook his head, eyes wide and shocked, pointing again at Bruce’s room. “There’s a naked man in there.”

“A man has a right to be naked in his own domain,” Clint automatically defended, lowering his fists, but Tony was shaking his head, dissuading the archer of whatever conclusions he’d immediately jumped to, breaking every notion Clint had in his head about the good Dr Banner.

“You’re _kidding_?” He said, staring wide eyed at the door as Tony started shaking his head profusely. “ _Seriously_? I had not pegged Brucey for a bloke who liked… well, I guess you do too, and you’re Tony Stark, so what do I know?”

“Beg pardon? What does that have to do with anything-“

“The fact he’s Tony Stark actually explains a lot,” Natasha said dryly, seamlessly inserting herself into their startled conversation. “I suppose the fact Bruce is not entirely straight is coming as a revelation?”

“The guy’s tattooed.” Tony argued. “He’s not allowed tattooed men. Next thing you know he’ll be riding about on a motorbike, and not the kind Cap uses – they’re good guy motorbikes. I mean _gang_ motorbikes.”

“His name is Daniel, he’s an expert in electromagnetic fields, and he and Bruce hit it off months ago. Where have you two been?” Natasha said, catching the two ignorant men up with what she considered old news. Practically prehistoric, in fact.

“I don’t make a habit of barging into Bruce’s room.”

“That’s probably for the best of everyone involved. Now, I think it’s time for breakfast.”

“Coffee?” Clint said eagerly, and Natasha patted his shoulder kindly.

\--

Thor and Cap were found playing on the game console when the other three came back from Bruce’s room, and Tony had been surprised. Thor had explained that he didn’t understand the purpose of pretending to fight when you could _actually_ fight, there was a sparring ring just downstairs, but that they had found and enjoyed some generation of Street Fighter almost distracted Tony completely. And then Bruce walked in, not a minute behind them, looking flustered and messy but unapologetic. Stark would have been busy pouting at him if Clint hadn’t started hounding him for caffeine.

“So will someone now explain to me why we’re all gathered here today?” Stark said now that they were all together. The inventor pushed a mug into Clint’s chest a little too hard, sloshing the coffee down his front. He didn’t even apologise, still grumpy about Bruce and Mr. Tattoos. “Not that I don’t _love_ having you all round, but if you wanted to tell me something we had hours sitting around doing absolutely nothing in Svart- _fuck knows_ -heim. Plenty of time to tell me that secret you’re all coveting so jealously.”

“We couldn’t risk anyone overhearing us.” Cap said, looking as prim and perfect as was to be expected of him, even this early in the morning.

“Like whom? The rocks? Oh god, you’re right, they could have told _anyone_.”

“He means whoever has been sending us back and forth in time.” Thor said, reaching out for a mug of his own, hungrily eying the meal Tony (or JARVIS) had clearly ordered in which lay sprawled over the coffee table. “They may have been watching us. Listening in.”

“And who’s to say they’re not doing that now?” Tony pointed out.

“Don’t you have security measures for that, Stark?” Natasha asked.

The inventor rolled his eyes. “Don’t you have a brain to stick under that pretty do?” He returned snappishly. “Hello, whoever or _whatever_ it is has been dropping us in and out of time however it feels fit, and you think it couldn’t get passed my security if it wanted to? JARVIS is programmed for things like Loki, who has a very specific set of traits such as a _face_ and a _heartbeat_ , which, as far as we know, this thing may not even _have_. Hell, even though Loki’s body temperature is weird as shit, at least we know he has a body.”

“You’ve made your point,” Bruce said gently. “But we need to talk about this.”

Thor nodded gravely, suddenly turning away from the food he had before been aggressively hoarding with his blue gaze. Clint quickly used the distraction to grab some waffles.

“Maybe we should start with _what_ we’re talking about?”

Natasha and Clint glanced at each other again, wondering about the best way of wording the facts to appeal to Tony’s more delicate of emotions. However, they both should have been quicker in deciding, since Thor cut across their contemplations like a steamroller.

He exclaimed, “Someone is trying to kill my brother,” and was met with silence.

Tony broke the tense atmosphere, in which both SHIELD agents eyed him warily, ready to jump in if he got emotional, by saying: “Since when is anyone _not_ trying to kill your brother? Let’s be honest here.”

“This is serious, Tony Stark,” Thor growled menacingly, but Tony, with the approximate self-preservation instinct of a daffodil, only clicked his tongue. He was taking this better than either of the assassins had anticipated, and they glanced at each other bemused, wondering if they had misread the signals.

Tony was saying, “Yeah, yeah, I’m sure it is, but it’s not like Loki’s easy to kill. We’ve seen him bounce back from _death_ like it was a bout of cold twice now. He’s stared it in the face enough times to be used to it. Why are we worrying about this?”

“Because of _when_ this mysterious being is sending us. They have targeted Loki when he is weak and unable to defend himself.”

“Loki is _never_ unable to defend himself. It’s _Loki_.” Tony tried to argue, but the other five had been gifted some time to think about this, and Tony had only had a couple of minutes to adjust. He was fighting a losing battle and, once he’d thought it through, they knew he’d agree with them.

However, a little push never hurt anything. Steve said, “There are many ways of catching someone unawares.”

“Are you kidding me?” Tony snapped back, scoffing. “He doesn’t even _blink_ when he sees us. Like in Asgard, there was no surprise or worry or fear. Or in Vanaheim. Even that bloody demon horse faltered a little bit when it first saw us, but Loki just carried on like we didn’t murder him. Like we fit into his time period when we obviously do not.” He gestured at his ACDC shirt, then to Steve. “Do you really think your stars and stripes are that inconspicuous?”

“You’re the one who called it spangly.”

“That’s because it is.”

“He has a point,” Clint interrupted, nodding towards the inventor, who took a long gulp of his own coffee mug. “Why wasn’t he surprised? Shouldn’t he be? Correct me if I’m wrong, Thor, but Loki was practically a teeny-bopper when he had the freaky horse. He wouldn’t have known us then.”

Thor nodded, but could only draw them all to the only conclusion they could extrapolate: “Then he has met us before.”

“Yeah, when Buckbeak blew a hole through him.”

“A hawk is nothing like a hippogriff,” Hawkeye complained, but Tony gave him no heed. Thor stopped an argument from building by cutting across them both, stating again that Loki had never remembered what had killed him, nor even that he had died. He only knew himself by what he had been told by others.

“So that means there’s something we’re missing. Something between him dying in Norway and the incident with demon horse?”

Thor nodded shortly, but could not remember any traumatic happenings between the two separate times. “They were not so far apart,” he claimed.

“Speaking of memories, can you explain the fact the time-travel takes time away from us? It seems to steal about twelve hours away, sometimes a couple of days.” Bruce asked Thor, changing the topic abruptly, aware that they had too few answers for a very tense subject and sought to alter that. “Our bodies seem to function, but abnormally. You said it was a sign of magic.”

The god nodded, but could hardly elaborate. “I do not have a lot of experience outside of this string of instances, other than one or two rare occasions. It takes power, the likes of which few sorcerers have, to move backwards in time. Loki can do it, but only minutes into the past. Even then, it stole hours from us, disproportionate to what we were given. Magic has its own price.”

“Can it take you forward in time?” Tony asked, now eager rather than put-out, but Thor shook his head.

“If it can, I have not heard of any such spell.”

“So we can reliably assume it’s unlikely we’re going to be catapulted into the far-flung future anytime soon, then? Travelling backwards is one thing, but I’m not sure if I’m comfortable with messing with the ghost of yet to come.” Clint said.

“I would not be certain,” Thor admitted reluctantly, but shook his head. “If it we find ourselves in such a situation, then we are dealing with power unlike anything imaginable. At that point, we will have to involve my father.”

“Is that… bad? Why haven’t we done that already?”

“He has suffered through much in recent times. Finding out that this is happening just after Loki died may be too much for him to bear.”

“Then let’s hope it doesn’t have to come to that.” Steve said gently.

“Another thing,” Natasha said, raising her hand shortly to get attention. “Mjölnir?”

Thor looked up, his weapon lying neatly in the cupboard with everyone’s coats, neat and polite as pie, confused as to what she meant. Clint was a little more in-tune, but Cap was faster.

“We didn’t think it was possible that Loki could hold your hammer.”

“It isn’t anymore,” Thor acknowledged. “There are certain spells that can be placed upon it, dictated by my father. I was not worthy of it for a long time, and yet I still carried it at my hip. It was not until New Mexico that I earned the right to it. The enchantment remains to ensure I do not stray from that worthiness, else I would hold too much power and too little sense to wield it as it deserves.”

“That’s good to know,” Tony said carefully, still surprised whenever Thor showed any glimmer of humility. A body like that rarely suited a modest temperament. “So, what, before then Loki could have held is as easily as you could?”

“I was jealous of my hammer, and once it was in my possession there were few I would allow to touch it.” Thor admitted, a little sheepishly.

“Natural,” Clint moved to sooth him, watching the middle of his brows furrow. “You should have seen me and my brother. Sharing a toy? Hell, we can hardly bring ourselves to share a meal _now_ , never mind when we were prepubescent.”

“You have a brother?” Tony asked, and Thor was looking at him too, as if re-evaluating his opinion of the archer. The two who weren’t surprised were Natasha and Steve, the latter of whom had actually studied the files of the people he was working with. Bruce didn’t seem to care, just glad to get some food in him and to see that Tony was no longer trying to guilt him into talking about his tattooed boyfriend with sulky looks.

“Next topic?” He suggested to the group, and seeing as he was already the centre of attention, Clint thought it was the right time to bring up what had been bothering him since their trip to Svartlfarheim. “I don’t know if you guys noticed, but Loki looked really scared on the dwarf world.”

“No shit,” Tony returned snappishly. Clint ignored him, looking at the blond god instead, gouging his reaction.

“I mean that he was scared of _you_ when you went all berserker on those rocks. Wanna tell the group what trauma caused _that_? I mean, for all we know that might be the next instalment of Time-Travelling Super Heroes.”

“I do not believe I have ever intimidated my brother to such a degree,” Thor denied profusely, bristling up at the notion he would ever willingly scar his family so deeply.

“The problem isn’t what you think, it’s what he thinks.” Bruce said. “He had a habit of misreading situations and overreacting.”

“Because a needle being tugged through ones lips is _very_ ambiguous.” Tony snapped. Both assassins narrowed their eyes at him suspiciously, whilst Bruce frowned.

“He believed you were trying to cut off his face,” the scientist reminded the billionaire. “Admittedly, that was because you were threatening to point a laser at his skull-“

“Yes, thank you.” Tony said. “Returning to Brave’s subject?”

“It’s an interesting question,” Steve said, self-appointed mediator, and once again the group found themselves staring at Thor, waiting for him to answer. His face was a riot of conflicting emotions, mind straining back into the far past in attempts to figure out what had frightened his brother so acutely.

Before he could answer, he was released from any responsibility when the quiet room was interrupted by a bright flash of light from outside the balcony. It originated from Tony’s Iron Man platform, and seemed to be heading up into the sky. Or, more likely, vice versa.

“What the hell?” Stark hissed, immediately jumping to his feet and running to the windows. Thor, however, didn’t find it as startling.

“It is the light of the Bifrost, come to deliver someone,” He told the Avengers as they gathered towards where Tony was glaring through the glass. “Though I do not know who.”

“Some of your buddies, for sure,” Stark pointed, tapping the glass with a sharp _clink_. On the balcony, the light was starting to fade, and what were left behind were four figures blinking in the sunlight, glancing around them to gauge their bearings.

“What have you done to my landing pad?” Tony snapped when he saw the burning marks seared into his mechanism. “If there is any damage to that, _you_ can fix it, your _highness_.”

But the god was not listening, quickly moving up a level to greet his friends as they came through the doors. He embraced the first that walked through – a blond in a light green Asgardian get-up – and smiled broadly at the other three as they filtered through.

“Come, sit, sit! Tell me what you’re doing here.” He demanded, gesturing them down to where the Avengers were waiting and Tony was scowling.

“Sure, invite them into _my_ house, why don’t you drink _my_ booze whilst you’re at it,” Clint heard him mutter, rightfully distrustful of any Asgardian settling in his tower, especially after _last time_. Although Tony seemed to be starting to learn how to get along with Loki if his little display of friendliness was any indication, that didn’t mean he trusted him or any other unknown Asgardian.

“This is Lady Sif,” Thor announced as she came to stand before them, idly judging their worthiness to be in Thor’s company. “And the Warriors Three: Fandral, Hogun and Volstagg. Friends, this is the Avengers, who chased Loki from this realm and emerged victorious against the Chitauri.” He waved a hand now at the five of them, who stood awkwardly, unsuited and puny in the gods’ presences. Even Captain America, hardly smaller than Thor himself, was dwarfed by the Asgardians and their perpetually present armour.

Thor, at least, was starting to accept that his full armour was too conspicuous for Earth, and had gotten into the habit of jeans and a t-shirt. He suited them too much, and his girlfriend had long since insisted on them whilst he was on Earth. The Avengers had wolf-whistled when they’d first seen him in a thin cotton tee and some tight-fitting jeans.

However, despite their apparently diminutive stature by comparison, especially poor Tony who stood small even amongst his own kind, Thor was honest in his pride as he introduced them. “Bruce Banner, Tony Stark, Clint Barton, Natasha Romanoff and Steve Rogers. My very dear friends and champions of Midgard.”

Bruce in particular was nervous, fiddling with his glasses, terrified that the other Asgardians wouldn’t be as open-minded of his _condition_ as Thor was. This seemed reasonable, since there really was no one quite as big-hearted and accepting as Thor on Earth, or even the universe.

The warriors, as the Avengers expected, smiled graciously but on the whole seemed unimpressed. They would have to see the humans in action sometime, Clint considered, because in all honestly, lined up like this made them look like a side-show attraction. Clint would know. Especially with Tony pouting like that.

“I want a drink, Tony,” Natasha said softly to him, and Stark immediately pounced into action – any excuse to wrap his fingers around a glass was a good one, and he probably felt the need for something strong.

Thor had since turned to his friends and encouraged them to take seats, a frown marring his sunny features. He asked, “Is it my father?”

“No,” Sif said soothingly, putting her hand up to stop the panic which had seeped into Thor’s tone. “No, your father seems to be managing better than before. _Much_ better.”

Thor’s chest heaved with an exhale of relief. He smiled again, full of thankfulness. “I had been worried. He seemed resigned but accepting when he let me go, but I wondered how he was coping without mother or Loki-“

“He is fine, I assure you.”

The Avengers had situated themselves around the room. Bruce had sat on a seat to the side, silently observing the encounter for posterity. Meanwhile, Natasha and Tony were at the bar – Stark pouring something amber from the decanter into a crystal glass, whilst the assassin swirled a small amount of red wine in a glass. She didn’t drink it, but her instincts told her that Stark didn’t want to be seen drinking alone at breakfast time.

Steve sat by them watchfully, whilst Clint used the distraction to pile some food onto his plate. Volstagg, the big red-headed Viking, was watching him out the corner of his eye.

The archer wasn’t listening to the conversation because there was something that was bugging him about their uninvited guests. They were saying something about _mourning_ and _recovery_ and _calm rule_. There seemed to be no bad news whatsoever, so he felt justified interrupting.

“You know what? I think I’ve seen you guys before. Before Norway B.C. too. You all came down to New Mexico in 2011, didn’t you?”

“They were on the file,” Natasha agreed. Pointing at each of them in turn, she said: “Xena, Robin Hood, Gimli and Jackie Chan.”

The blond huffed, not familiar with the names, but recognising when he’d been slighted.

“What brings you here, Robin Hood?” Clint asked since the blond had drawn attention to himself, pulling up a seat next to their guests, crunching down on his waffles. “Gotta be something good else you wouldn’t have bothered.”

“If it’s solely related to Thor you could have called for him alone.” Natasha agreed, and suddenly all the Avengers were staring at the Asgardians suspiciously. All except Thor, of course, who rolled his eyes at his mortal companions towards his immortal friends.

“We have been through a lot recently,” Thor admitted. “Forgive them for their wariness.”

“It is that which we are here to speak to you all about,” Hogun, the dark-haired warrior with the morning star strapped to his waist answered. “There has been a lot of energy and magic which has disturbed the gatekeeper.”

“Heimdall? Perhaps he will have answers-“ But Thor was stopped by Sif outstretching her long fingers.

“He knows as little as we. As little as you seem to, as well.”

“We came to offer our services.” Fandral added, smiling over at Natasha, flirty yet earnest. Clint scowled around a mouthful of breakfast. “We thought we could study this with you. Perhaps lend you our weapons.”

“Ah, no,” Tony harked, almost tripping over his trouser leg trying to interrupt the thunder god. Natasha joined him, a steady arm at his elbow, and a stern eye to keep their audience under control. “No, we don’t know if they can be trusted.”

Sif started to stand, slighted, and the warriors three did not look happy at Tony’s blatant attack on their honour, but Thor seemed to see something deeper in Stark’s actions than his friends. Clint thought he saw it too, and shared a silent but loaded glance with Natasha.

 _Should we be worried now?_ It said. Mutely, Natasha nudged her head indicating a negative.

 _At least not yet_ , she didn’t say.

“You are protective, and I thank you.” Thor had stood and was putting a large hand over Tony’s shoulder, trying to catch his eye even when Stark was studiously avoiding it. “But we do need help.”

“Look, we’ve done enough damage. Even if you trust them, _we_ have no idea if we can or not. And even if they’re who they say they are, then they might mess up anyway. It’s took us twice not to kill him, and that’s _without_ thousands of years of grudge built up.”

“Of what does mortal speak?” She snapped, and now all the warriors looked anxious. Ah, shit. They probably were already suspecting only one person, as the Avengers had in the initial days of time-travelling weirdness.

“Loki is _dead_.” Thor said, yet again. If he had a dollar…

Tony waved a hand, deeming it unimportant. He wanted back everyone’s attention, and got his way quickly. Tony Stark was certainly well-practised at worming his way into the limelight. “We know nothing about what is happening or who is behind it, and you don’t know who’s gotten to your fancy battle mates. I can’t be alone in thinking it’s weird that they show up just as we realise what’s really going on.”

“What _is_ really going on?” Volstagg wondered out loud, which was a very reasonable question. It was a shame no one wanted to answer him.

“I do not like all this secret keeping.” Sif admitted, and the Warriors Three quickly agreed with her. Thor grimaced.

“Nor I. It is a trick too much like my brother, but then Tony certainly puts me in mind of Loki.”

“Oh, thanks. That’s charming.”

“However, for now, I think it is for the best that it remain between myself and the Midgardian warriors. You may tell Heimdall that, for the time being, we have it under control.”

None of the guests liked that any better, but in the puppy-dog face of their friend who had lost so much in such a short amount of time, it had to be accepted. For now, at least.

“If you need us-“ Volstagg said, and Thor clasped the red-bearded man around the arm.

“I will not hesitate to call for you. I’m sure I will not have to keep this secret for long – we have in our company the finest of Midgard’s minds. It will only be too soon before we discover what is lurking beneath this peculiar magic.”

“I hope so.” Sif confided as they moved to stand outside and be collected by Heimdall and the Bifrost once more. “And I hope you call for us soon. We are your allies, Thor. We are yours too, Avengers.”

“Sure you are.” Tony shot after them, but waved obediently as the others did.

Thor sighed at Stark once his friends had been consumed with the bright, multi-coloured lights signalling the abrupt departure of the Asgardians, gone as quickly as they had arrived. “Tony, I know you are right to be suspicious, but you are sometimes too harsh on others.”

Tony absently licked his lips, thinking whether to go with witty or frank with his reply, but was saved by Steve sneaking up behind him and clasping a hand over his mouth.

“Perhaps it’s best if we all had a time out,” he said, before: “You licked me!”

“Your hand was _right there_ ,” Tony defended when Steve jerked away, and Clint supported him mindlessly, chuckling at the soldier’s disgust.

“Can we just finish breakfast?” Cap asked the ceiling in despair, and the ceiling replied: “ _Certainly, sir. It would be prudent to reheat the waffles. They will be prepared in minus two minutes_.”

“Thank you, JARVIS,” said Steve.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all of you for your comments. I really appreciate it! Hope this helped fill in some holes, but I know it doesn't explain anything. Yet.


	7. 2 - Asgard

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note on chapter titles, and it's a note I will probably keep repeating until the story is finished: Subject to change. Probably not much change, but I could so easily start shuffling things around, especially because not everything is written yet. So, you know, pretty much ignore them for the time being.

It was impossible not to recognise Asgard, with its glittering streets and towering architecture, but there was definitely something different about it. Clint felt uneasy, several topics from the discussion at Stark Tower coming back to haunt him.

He asked, “We’re not in the future, right?”

They had found themselves once more sequestered neatly away down a small alley-way. Thor had peered around down a street, looking concerned. It was sadly a very familiar look on the god in recent weeks, and considering Thor wasn’t naturally a miserable soul, unlike his brother who enjoyed a good brood, it was distressing to see him in such a state. Eventually he answered: “No.”

“Just checking.”

According to Thor and the frown which was almost as mighty as his muscles, they were earlier in history than they had been, possibly even earlier than Norway.

“I’m not sure about that,” he said as a disclaimer. “Asgard can stay stationary and unchanging over hundreds of years, so I cannot be certain.”

Steve took lead of the group as soon as they had established a time period, grouping them around: “As we now know, we’re not meeting Loki in chronological order.”

“It’s chronological for _him_.” Clint pointed out.

Captain America finished: “Which is precisely why we shouldn’t be surprised if he reacts in different ways to us each time we see him.”

“We figured that out.” Tony said. “He knew our names the second time we played this time-hop thing. Well, mine. Which, you know, at that point in history shouldn’t be possible. I know my legacy transcends time itself, but I rather thought it’d be in a _forward_ direction. This is…”

“Wibbly-wobbly?” Clint suggested. Tony shrugged.

“I was trying to maintain my image as the resident boffin, but ‘King of Pop Culture’ works too. _Yes_ , wibbly-wobbly timey-whimey. Bruce, you got anything to add?”

“What, besides the fact it shouldn’t be possible at all?” Banner said incredulously. “Or that the very existence of time travel completely disregards several major theories in the scientific community and is starting to put some serious wind behind the sails of less supported ideas? This situation we’re in, for example, means we should seriously be turning science in new directions, potentially even towards the Swiss Cheese Universe.”

Natasha said, “Pardon?”

Clint said, “Sorry, what?”

Steve said, “English, if you would.”

Thor wasn’t listening, staring out into the landscape for any more specific markers in time.

Tony swung and arm around Cap and gave him a bright grin. “It means say goodbye to the Big Bang Theory. And I don’t mean the TV show.”

“That’s all very interesting,” Steve replied, moving out from under Tony’s grip. “But that doesn’t really help us. Thor, where’s your brother?”

“He’ll be along eventually,” Clint reminded them, but quietened when Thor beckoned them towards a silent street.

“Can we test out that theory of mine?” Tony asked, gazing longingly at a more crowded area.

“Which one? The one that was thoroughly disproved when that demon horse _attacked_ us, or the one which was blown out of the water before that, when it _saw_ us?”

Tony held up a finger, tutting at his doubt. “Ye of little faith. When you returned back to the present, Mr. Barton, did you notice at all that you returned uninjured despite being almost trampled like a daisy under demon horse's hooves? All your cuts and bruises were gone. Everything was wiped clean, back to factory settings.”

Clint narrowed his eyes, thinking this through. “What about if we die? Would we just wake up like in a dream?”

“Only one way to find out.”

“Stop it!” Cap swiftly stepped between them, one hand gripping Tony’s wrist where his repulsor was whirring, and the other clasping around Clint’s quickly drawn bow. “On the off-chance Iron Man is wrong, no one is shooting anyone. _Or_ stabbing, or hitting with blunt objects, or otherwise murdering each other. Do you understand?”

The two nodded, staring each other down. Tony was trying hard to fight the smirk off his face, whilst Clint didn’t bother. Stark was an idiot thinking he could almost bump off one of the best assassin’s in the world. SHIELD chose Hawkeye for a reason.

He defended himself, “Hey, blame Stark’s mood swings. Just because he’s antsy about seeing his boyfriend-“

“Clint.” Steve snapped whilst Tony rolled his eyes, but didn’t lower his repulsor.

“Tony.” Cap said slowly, manually lowering Clint’s weapon and glaring at Stark until he too reclined his wrist. “Now, do you two want to tell me what this is _really_ about?”

“That first time, he shot a man – admittedly it was Loki – without even thinking about it. Why aren’t we talking about this?”

“Hey, need I remind you that _you_ killed the maniac that second time? And, as you so graciously pointed out, it was _Loki_.”

“Why did you shoot him at all? He wasn’t attacking us. At least I had an excuse!”

“It’s _Loki_.” Clint stressed again, as if Stark was an idiot. “For one thing, I assumed that he was _going_ to attack us quicker than I thought _oh_ _look, we’ve time travelled and he doesn’t know us._ And two, I’ve never been able to hit him before, so assumed I wouldn’t that time either.” It was a big admission from the best marksman in the world, and something he’d have preferred to keep to himself. However, Stark’s scrunched up eyebrows and big, round eyes motivated him towards the truth almost as forcefully as the whirring repulsors aimed at his face.

The same repulsors, Clint was glad to note, that were starting to slowly wind down.

Stark asked, “You didn’t mean to do it?”

“About as much as you did.” This was another bit of frank truth he’d have preferred to keep to himself. As an assassin, it was worse to _accidentally_ kill someone than _plan_ for it.

“Alright then.” Stark returned, apparently begrudging. In the silence afterwards, when everyone’s weapons had been lowered and Stark refused to meet his eye, Clint said: “We good?”

Tony managed a smile, but it was little and awkward and embarrassing for everyone. “We’re good. At least until you do something stupid again.”

“ _Me_? What about your bright ideas about not being able to be seen or harmed? Obviously we _can_.”

Tony scowled in Clint’s direction, before eying the street to the left where oblivious citizens walked and shopped, before turning to the right where there was no one. Thor had wanted to lead them in the direction of the quiet side alley as before, likely to lead them back towards Loki’s quarters. Tony decided to turn on his heel and leg it in the opposite direction.

“Stark!” Clint yelled, but when Iron Man put a bit of power into his repulsors, he was already too far out of reach. He landed in the middle of a crowded street, arms out stretched, face plate lifted to grin at the natives.

“Tony!” Cap warned, stopping at the end of the alley, still hidden in the shadows, eyes narrowed with suspicion.

Clint wasn’t the only one who was underwhelmed with Asgard’s response to Tony’s abrupt arrival. As it proved, no one even blinked twice at Iron Man. Even given that these people were gods capable of space-travel who were likely used to seeing unusual things, that didn’t account for the cold-shoulder Tony was receiving. Tony Stark was a hard man to ignore, even to those who were accustomed to him. A stranger, however, found it impossible to turn their eyes away. So, either Asgardians were especially good at being wilfully ignorant, or they couldn’t see him at all. The latter was, at least in the case of Tony Stark, significantly more likely.

Tony’s smirk was smug as he turned towards his colleagues, and Clint was tempted to explode an arrow in his face just to see that expression dissipate.

“You make it hard to love you.” He told Tony when they were beckoned forward. The citizens of Asgard didn’t even see their own prince wandering amid their ranks, and if that didn’t prove that the Avengers were essentially invisible then nothing would.

“Okay, so now we’ve discovered that Tony is not a complete idiot, shouldn’t we start looking for Loki?” Natasha pointed out, and Thor nodded his compliance.

“I’m not entirely sure what date it is, and apparently cannot ask,” he stuck out a hand to gain attention, only to be rejected as his subjects walked around him, ignorant to their own strange footwork; compulsively avoiding the middle of the street. Bruce, out of curiosity, copied Thor’s motion and found the same effect.

Thor finished: “So I cannot direct you to him.”

“Normally he comes to find us.” Stark reminded him, and Thor agreed half-heartedly, gaze lingering in the direction of Loki’s rooms.

Three flying ships, sleek and stylised and gold, streamed almost silently overhead. The five human Avengers watched them do so with some amount of awe, whilst Thor’s eyes narrowed and a considering look overthrew his expression.

“You know where he is, don’t you?” Steve said encouragingly, and Thor streaked off in one direction, mindless of the citizens who unthinkingly moved out of their way.

By the time they all reached a docking area most of them were panting from attempting to chase the Asgardian. Luckily, stern drills from Captain America and long periods spent ensuring they were all in tip-top condition meant that it didn’t take them too long to recover. There were a few ships here, and Thor gathered the other Avengers into a spare one before gently driving it out of its station.

When they were hanging in the sky in a not completely secure aircraft, Thor clasped onto Hawkeye’s shoulder and pointed out into the open air. He said, “You have the best sight short of Heimdall himself. Can you see my brother?”

“I don’t think I’m comfortable with the idea of Loki flying.” Bruce murmured when Clint had taken point at the head of the boat. The scientist was only partly joking. “Attack from above.”

“That is a touch unsettling.” Cap acknowledged, whilst Tony scoffed.

“Are we forgetting two of us can actually fly? Loki wouldn’t stand a chance.”

“He’s a very good pilot.” Thor inserted, just in time for Clint to point a finger and Thor to jerk at the steer, gunning after what the archer knew was Loki. Even from a brief glance, he was unmistakable.

“How do you even regulate this thing?” Tony said curiously, poking at the controls until Thor physically pushed him away as the boat rocked dangerously.

It didn’t take long for Loki to notice he was being pursued, employing a burst of speed and various intricate avoidance manoeuvres in an attempt to shake them.  However, Thor was well-versed in his brother’s tactics and they did not struggle to keep on his tail.

The God of Thunder suddenly accelerated, anticipating Loki’s motions and cutting across him, forcing his dark-haired brother to either crash into them or stop. Perhaps if he had been older Loki would have put on more speed, the crazy bastard, but Thor rightly predicted that the Loki of now would prefer to save his own skin.

Loki swerved, knocking their boats together horizontally, stopping just in time to keep them all in the sky. He looked to his brother then to the rest of the company, before startling and jumping backwards.

 _Oh_ , Clint thought, brain clicking. _He is so young_.

“You!” Loki accused, shaking, backing away, going to tug at the steer but stopping dead when the Avengers clambered awkwardly into his flying craft, backing him into a corner. He snarled defensively, like a cat fluffing its tail: “What do you want? Have you come to kill me again?”

The Avengers shared a glance before Tony lifted his face plate and made a long _oh_ sound. “You don’t know who we are?”

“You are the creatures in the forest on Midgard, and an imposter who looks like my brother. How did you get to Asgard?”

“I thought you said he didn’t remember.” Bruce asked Thor, whilst Natasha and Clint rolled their eyes simultaneously.

“You remember what he’s the patron of, right? He certainly isn’t the God of Truth.”

“We’re not here to hurt you,” Cap directed at the petrified Asgardian, stepping forward with Thor but stopping when Loki curled up around himself, eyes wide with terror but mouth curled with contempt. A knife appeared in his hand, and he waved it at Steve’s eyes, warding him back.

“You murdered me!”

“I’m guessing we’re just _after_ Norway,” Clint corrected Thor’s prediction, watching as Loki quick mind started working on deciphering his words.

“Who _are_ you?” He asked.

“Clint Barton.” The archer stretched out a hand in greeting but expected to sooner losing a finger than get Loki to shake. “Known as Hawkeye. I’m the one that shot you.”

Loki backed away further whilst simultaneously slashing at him with the blade, and Clint tried not to laugh. Natasha elbowed him in the stomach, whilst Thor stepped in front of his brother protectively.

“I’m Steve Rogers,” Steve was the only one immediately allowed past the defensive older – _much_ older – brother, and he stood at his full height, trying to match Loki’s level. “Hawkeye didn’t mean to hit you when he shot at you. We’re sorry for hurting you.”

“ _Hurting_ him?” Stark spoke up with a snide tone, shoving bodily through Thor and grinning down at the young god. “We _killed_ him. Glad to see you’re up and about, though, green eyes. Hey, I’m Tony Stark. It’s nice to finally introduce myself. All of this has been very topsy-turvy.”

“What’s happening here? And why does _he_ look like Thor?”

“He _is_ Thor.” Tony replied. “Someone want to explain this to him? I’m not sure where to start.”

“You’re from the future.” Loki said factually, glaring at Tony’s armour, then moving to Steve’s earnest blue eyes. This threw the Avengers who, for the first time, remembered that Loki was intelligent and not just vicious.

“How’d you figure that?” Tony wondered, but Loki was now standing, eying Clint warily.

Far too quickly for Clint’s liking, Loki had realised that he wasn’t in danger of the archer’s arrows; one more turnaround of recent times which Clint wasn’t comfortable with, and yet another thing he wasn’t thinking about.

But despite his own conclusions, the god wasn’t convinced. Loki hesitantly, clenching his fists in an attempt to control his own fear, went to stand in front of his brother. Thor met his sharp, calculating glare. Thor’s eyes were like electricity, bright and vivid, and Loki slowly put his hand to Thor’s long hair whilst the golden god rested his palm against the crook of Loki’s neck. Thor’s thumb came to rest on Loki’s cheek, automatic and gentle, and the younger sighed loudly.

“Thor.” He said. “I feared I’d be uncertain, that time may have changed you too greatly. I was wrong. I know you.”

“And I you.” Thor said, voice breathless with relief. “You believe us?”

“Not fully,” Loki admitted. “I feel as if I am in a dream.” He caught sight of Clint in his periphery, who waved cheerfully. “Or a nightmare.”

“We’re pretty real,” Tony promised. “We can give you data, if it helps. Brucey, give the man some readings.”

“You’re the one in the suit, Tony.”

But Loki wasn’t listening, his laser gaze latched onto his big brother. “You travelled through time. How? The energy and magic that would take is monumental-“

“We don’t know.” Thor replied, not letting Loki out of his grip. His brother frowned but accepted his touch without question. That single action spoke heavily of the type of relationship the siblings used to have, many, many years ago. “We will find out, I swear.”

“Why did your Hawkeye, _Barton_ , kill me?”

The Avengers became uneasy, sharing awkward glances or not looking to Loki at all, and the god was the herald of lies – he knew when there was something amiss. He was still uneasy, but seemed to feel safer in his brother’s company.

“I’m assuming myself and Clint Barton are at odds. Quite severely, I’d wager.”

“I wouldn’t if I were you.” Tony muttered, but Clint cut across him quickly.

“It’s just a game.” He slapped on a grin and winking in Loki’s direction. “You don’t know this yet, but you and I have this competitive thing going on which largely involves us throwing deadly things at each other and seeing what sticks. See, Norway in times gone by was the first time I’ve actually hit you, so go Team Loki.”

Loki’s eyes were narrow, green as poison, and if the colour was even a touch more literal Clint would have been in trouble.

“Some of that is an outright fabrication.” The liesmith said slowly, but it was clear he couldn’t pinpoint the specifics. Point team Hawkeye. “I am unwilling to believe we are on friendly terms, however.”

“Well, more recently you’d be surprised.” Clint acknowledged, resentfully, mostly to himself.

Tony, meanwhile, was tapping the point of his chest where his arc reactor once was, a motion to indicate he was thinking deeply about something and wasn’t quite aware of the _tink_ of his fingers against something which wasn’t there. Loki’s eyes were drawn to him, and Tony smiled, the spell of deep thinking broken as Loki glanced his way.

“Just pondering the specifics to a set of hypotheses.” He told them all, looking straight at the dark-haired god. “It’s not important right now.”

“Why are you made of metal?” Loki finally got around to asking, since it had clearly been bugging him.

“It’s a suit,” Tony said, though Loki knew that already and his question was not strictly literal. “Like your brother has his hammer or Clint his arrows or Natasha her intimidating set of martial arts, I have my suit.”

“You speak of a hammer?” Loki latched onto, stepping back as far as Thor would let him without letting him go, spotting Mjölnir hanging by Thor’s hip. His smile was devastating as he looked up at his brother. “You wield such power.” He sounded worse than jealous; he seemed _proud_. Happy for his brother in a way the older Loki never was, nor could ever be.

A sudden reverent silence overcame the boat, where those from the future found themselves stump for anything to say in the face of a vision of Loki who was young, innocent and completely star-struck by the man his brother would become.

The magic was broken by the rising call of rowdy visitors which shook the silence away as they raced towards them. The tranquil if slightly unnerving mood was further disturbed by how Loki’s face immediately soured.

“Who is it?” Bruce asked. Clint clambered over Steve to spy upon those whizzing closer on another dangerously sideless flying boat.

“Mini Thor and the whole motley crew.” He reported back, spotting how Loki’s eyes had darkened. “Not a fan of the Warriors Three?”

“We share a complicated relationship.”

“Yeah, that’s not surprising.”

“Loki!” The younger version of Thor greeted as he aligned himself on their port side, eyes gleaming with excitement. “What are you doing out here alone?”

“I’m not-“ Loki stopped himself quickly, glancing suspiciously at the strange band of Avengers, who waved cheekily at the Asgardians, before quickly changing track. “I was attempting, brother, to find a slip of realm in which I could be left in peace.”

Thor laughed, before spotting the craft the Avengers had vacated. “What is this doing out here?”

Loki shrugged without a second thought, guilelessly letting slip a slick lie. “I found it here. It concerned me that it had been abandoned. I was going to bring it back once I had studied the area, but you’ve disturbed that too. It would be easier for one of you to return it rather than I attempt to drag it behind me. So, that said, if you’ll excuse me.”

“Do you not wish to join us? We are going to train in the mountain peaks.”

“Do not take this the wrong way, Thor, but I would rather face a stampede of Bilgesnipe.” Loki said, looking to the Warriors Three who were scowling at him at different levels of distaste. None were outright aggressive, the Avengers noted, but they were certainly bordering on emotionally hostile towards Thor’s younger brother. The older Thor, having not seen the world from this perspective before, seemed to realise that his friends’ hatred of his younger sibling had not started during the New Mexico fiasco. Perhaps, Clint thought, Thor was starting to see how and why that situation had spiralled so quickly out of control.

The younger Thor laughed, before winking at his brother. “Another time, then. Have fun doing whatever it is you were planning.” It was snide, in its own manner – as much as Thor could be snide, anyway. The Warriors Three found it funny, smirking as Hogun jumped into the abandoned boat after Thor and they left back the way they came.

“Nice kids.” Bruce offered up, cutting when he wanted to be, looking to the blond god. Thor himself seemed downcast, whilst Loki patted his arm.

“I do hope that you grow out of your childish need to prove yourself.”

“Not for a long time.” Thor admitted. Loki, in turn, smiled and finally broke free of his brother’s hold, forcibly moving Tony out of the way to guide the boat.

“Where are we going?” Steve asked as Loki took the steer in one hand and directed the ship in the opposite direction of the city, pointing away from where the younger version of his older brother had headed.

Loki shrugged in reply, delighting in his complete freedom. “Anywhere. The realm is bigger than one may expect. There is a world here that remains undiscovered to me, and I wish to explore it.”

“Curiosity killed the cat.” Tony said.

Loki frowned at him. “How?”

“Asking questions got him assassinated.”

“That was me.” Natasha inserted dryly.

“Head in that direction,” Thor prompted and Loki obediently, trustingly, followed his finger.

He then looked hard at his brother, and asked, “ _Why_ are you here? Were you sent?”

“We’ve just come to say hi,” Tony said, sitting down opposite him and relaxing against the side of the boat. “We’ll inevitably disappear when we don’t do anything other than have a nice little chat. I am beginning to wonder why we were put _here_ , actually.”

Natasha answered, “Perhaps Loki was expected to attack us.”

“Foolish.” Thor growled towards the sea. The Avengers agreed. Apparently, whoever it was who was tripping them through the folds of time didn’t know Loki all that well. Loki, when he was older, would certainly have attacked them if he felt threatened. Loki of now seemed more likely to trust that the world was full of people who could be reasoned with (or at least verbally and psychologically manipulated) before he had to resort to force. He’d learn the error of his ways soon enough.

“I have not heard of magic so strong except that of my father.” Loki admitted, staring for a long time at his brother’s back. “Is this him? Why would he send you through time?”

“It is not father.” Thor replied quickly, before the Avengers could even start contemplating the suggestion. “We do not know why we are being sent here.”

“We’re being dropped at particular points in your life,” Steve elaborated, sitting next to Tony to look at Loki face-to-face. “Points which we have come to recognise as moments when you are vulnerable.”

“I have only seen you in Norway.” Loki argued. “And I would not say I was more ‘vulnerable’, as you say, than I am at any other time. Nor am I defenceless now. I am as armed as I was then.” He briefly graced all who was looking with a glance at the inside of his coat, lined with glinting, silver knives. Loki could hit a man at thirty paces with a bull’s eye accuracy which made even Hawkeye seethe. The Avengers spared a moment warily wondering at what age he became so good.

“Norway was probably just a fluke,” Bruce interrupted, brain occasionally too fast for even Tony Stark, leaving the rest of them behind in his dust. “It was the first time we had met you outside a linear time-stream as well. This time, perhaps, you could be viewed as vulnerable because it is the second time you’ve met us, after we had killed you once. You would be expected to be frightened and potentially to lash out.”

Loki’s face was heavy with consideration, weighing up the hypotheses Banner presented before him and extrapolating almost unrelated conclusions, practically apropos of nothing. One such of these leaps of logic included: “This is not your second time meeting me.”

Tony answered, “No. We’ve been back and forth through your timeline, what is it, five times now? We know more about you than you do, kid.”

“That’s distressing.” Loki admitted. More than he’d ever offer anyone in his later years. He looked to his brother again, who was keeping determinedly mum. “How old are you?”

“You mean how old will you come to be?” Thor smiled, breathing deep before stating: “Over two-thousand years old.”

Loki nodded, laughing under his breath, seemingly a little overwhelmed. “And now I am hardly two hundred. Such a life we have yet to live.”

“You wouldn’t believe most of it if we told you.” Clint inserted, but didn’t continue when Thor glared at him.

“But that does not answer any of my questions. I understand if you do not know entirely who has sent you, but _how_ are you here?”

“We were wondering if you’d tell us that, actually.” Natasha said seriously, quick-thinking working to formulate a plan. “We’re from Earth, and the only thing we know about magic is that we don’t know anything at all. Thor says it’s an advanced form of science, but we have some pretty great scientists on our team,” (Tony grinned whilst Bruce waved modestly,) “And we’re still flying blind. We can’t get a reading on anything, we haven’t seen a face or heard a voice, and all we know is that it’s targeting you.”

Loki, of course, ignored the rest and only seemed to hear the most distressing word. “ _Targeting_?”

“Did she say ‘targeting’?” Tony replied quickly, shaking his head. “I didn’t hear targeting. Bruce, did you hear targeting?”

But, of course, Loki wasn’t putting up with any of Stark’s bullshit.

“We needed to tell you.” Steve admitted. “And this is good. This is sooner in your time stream than we’ve been before, and the earlier you know the sooner you can start protecting yourself.”

“Targeting me for what?”

“Someone wishes us to kill you.” Thor spoke up before anyone could find a flowery way of tip-toeing around the subject, though the news only seemed to confirm Loki’s suspicions. He clicked his tongue, swerving around a rock formation protruding from the water absently, hardly even looking at their path.

“They have succeeded once.” He pointed out, and Steve kicked at Tony when he went to correct him, reminding the inventor that Loki had not yet experienced the second time they accidentally murdered him. Loki, of course, noticed their squabble. He narrowed his eyes at them, lips thinning.

“ _Twice_ , say you.” He amended, only keeping his grip on serenity by digging his nails hard into his own palms. “I sincerely hope I come back the second time as I did the first.”

“I wouldn’t worry about that just yet.” Clint said, smiling in a manner he hoped was optimistic rather than damning.

“Taking that from you certainly soothes my nerves.” Loki said, and Clint rolled his eyes.

“Sarcastic from a young age, weren’t you?”

“I don’t remember a time he wasn’t,” Thor said as cheerfully as he could manage, thankful now that the weight of secrecy had been taken from his shoulders.

Loki offered them a glower, but forced himself to return the conversation to a less worrying topic of any impending deaths. It wasn’t like they could do anything about it, and Clint had to remember that Loki ultimately survived to destroy New York. The reminder that Loki wasn’t a bright-eyed young whippersnapper stayed his tongue before he could go blabbing about the secrets of the future.

“I still feel like this is a dream. A night terror to make sense of what happened to me.”

“Why did you not tell me you knew?”

Loki’s look was condescending towards his brother, glancing pointedly to Thor’s unusual companions. “You’d have thought me mad. _I_ thought I was mad! I still don’t believe in you, when you _yourself_ , your own past, cannot see that you exist. I cannot be blamed for omitting that one truth. I very well may be seeing what is not there.”

“We’re not hallucinations.” Steve said kindly.

Loki scoffed. “So speaks the hallucination.”

They had no answer to that, even Tony and Clint were stump for something obnoxious to say, but Loki used the silence to collect together whatever rationality he seemed to possess in the days of yore.

Loki said, perhaps a little desperately, able to stretch out a hand for help before whatever happened to screw him up went ahead and screwed him up. “I recall that you said you were unaware who is behind this, but surely you must have some ideas?”

“Again, we were hoping you would know.” Natasha returned.

Sounding a bit more in control, though snappish with frustration; too much going on at once, conflicting input meeting an impossible outcome, he was much too stressed to hold back his tone: “You expect me to know who is trying to kill me, and yet not act in retaliation?”

“I think it’s called ‘pre-emptive’ if they haven’t tried anything yet. Retaliation is after the fact.”

“Thank you, Stark.” Loki replied drily. “Though even if he himself hasn’t acted yet for him, the fact they were the indirect cause of my murder on Midgard implies that it is not _pre-emptive_ on my part.”

Even Tony, after a moment of consideration, had to tilt his head in begrudging acknowledgement.

“So no ideas whatsoever?” Cap interrupted, breaking up the stare between the god and the inventor, and Loki shook his head. Thor distracted all their attention, however, when he shifted suddenly from his vigil at the other end of the boat.

“Now he will know we’ve warned you, so I cannot assure you of our return.” He said, kneeling by his brother and meeting those toxic green eyes. “You will see us again, but we may not see you.”

“Why are you so sad, brother?” Loki returned, gazing at his sibling with his eyebrows tightly drawn, and it seemed that Thor, after a long moment, might even reply when he was subjected to such close scrutiny from the master of liars, but just as he started to open his mouth Loki’s eyes were caught by the oncoming rock formation rapidly approaching.

“Whoa, shit!” Clint called out, knocked from where he was sitting when Loki pulled up broadside in a sharp and rapid move. His reactions were sublime, as Hawkeye already knew. Loki was one of those infuriating super-people who could catch arrows in _midflight._ It was therefore of no surprise that he could react to a potentially fatal crash.

“That was close,” Cap said, checking that everyone was alright. Tony and Bruce were a little shaken, Natasha was frowning at herself for not noticing, and Cap and Thor were looking thankfully to their pilot. Loki, in turn, looked sheepish.

“My apologies.” He said. “I was not paying attention.”

“What’s important is that you were when it mattered.” Cap replied, instructing the god to not be hard on himself, before sternly reminding him: “But driving means keeping your eye on the road.”

“Yeah, gotta agree with Ice-Cap. Can your touching family-bonding moments wait until we’re stationary?” Tony requested.

“Certainly,” Loki started, but seemed distracted, staring at the rock they had barely been saved from smashing into. It was _huge_ , bathing the boat in its immense shadow, and Loki seemed particularly captivated. “Why did you point us this way, brother?”

“I believed it would be enlightening.”

Loki slowly drew his eyes from the rock, nodding shortly. He smiled, “So it has been,” and changed the subject. “How long will you remain here?”

“We can be plucked to and from the timeline as our captor sees fit-“ Thor started, and Clint blinked, closing his eyes to the bright sunlight of Asgard and reopened them to the dark, distantly lamp-lit living room of Stark Tower.

He was curled up on the sofa with Natasha breathing into his neck, and she was blinking awake too. On the floor Thor sat upright whilst Steve shifted, rubbing his eyes. Tony ran in from the direction of his bedroom, whilst Bruce was nowhere to be seen, presumably in his own bed wrapped around Mr. Tattoos.

“You mean like that?” Tony finished Thor’s sentence with a short laugh, whilst the others considered how Loki would have taken dealing with his brother and the other time travellers popping out of existence so quickly. His hallucination argument was probably starting to look pretty appealing.

“I hope he took us seriously.” Clint said. “Maybe if he believed us he might end up finding an answer for the next time we meet. For all we know, a few days to us could be another few thousand years to him.”

“If he finds something then that would be very helpful in determining how to control this spell, or at least trace it back to its source.”

“Can we just get Loki to do that?” Stark asked. “I mean, he’s the sorcerer. What are mere mortals meant to do against magic?”

“We’ve beaten magic before.”

“Only because Loki’s plan was shit. Anyway, the Chitauri weren’t magic – that was just Prince Psycho.”

Cap glanced worriedly to Thor, but the god was too deep in contemplation to really be listening to Tony verbally assault his brother. Tuning out wasn’t an uncommon reaction to when Stark was talking, but personally Clint had never figured out how to filter out the inventor’s nonsensical drivel.

He replied, “You don’t need to hide it with mean nicknames, Tony. I was joking about him being your boyfriend initially, but you’re beginning to convince me that maybe something else _is_ going on-“

“Whatever you’re thinking, you can put a break on that mental train before it comes off the track.” Stark hissed.

“Defensive.” Clint pointed out, growing concerned.

“Stop it.” The warning was from Natasha, aimed towards Clint. The archer, in turn, pouted. “Though, really Tony, if you’re compromised perhaps it’d be best if you tried to keep your distance.”

“Keep my distance, how?” Stark returned sharply. “You mean by not being whisked away on a group play-date to kill Thor’s brother? Yeah, no, I don’t think I have the choice to opt out there, considering someone is snatching me out of my own life and dropping me into that psychopath’s instead.”

“Would you opt out? If you had a choice, I mean.” Clint asked, voice heavy with sincerity. Tony’s eyes flared wide when he recognised the weight of his words, realising the conversation was now demanding more than the mask the genius so readily offered. These were his friends. More importantly than that, these were his teammates. They needed to know he was reliable in a tight situation, or if he wasn’t they needed to know _how_ so they could act accordingly to keep everyone safe and not dead. If Tony had a weak-spot as big as what Clint was suggesting, then they _really_ needed to prepare for it, if not forcibly remove Iron Man from the situation completely.

“I don’t have a choice.” Tony tried to worm out of the question, but a sharp word from Captain America (and the name _Tony_ had never sounded so intimidating out of such a kind mouth) had the inventor rethinking his strategy.

“He _died_.” Tony said. “ _Twice_. And once was my fault.”

“This isn’t about pity though, is it?” Natasha noticed, much as she had noticed that Thor was now watching at his teammate fret, assessing him and very slowly, with the wisdom and patience of a glacier, deciding what to do about the balance shift which was starting to come to light.

“No.” He admitted. “No, it’s not. I can’t pity him when he’s bounding back from _dying_ as if it was a god damn bouncy castle.”

“What is it about, then?” Steve asked, worry etching a dark line into his forehead, accentuated by the deep shadows of the night. Tony didn’t immediately answer. Somewhat awkwardly, Steve tried to prompt him, saying: “He’s very beautiful-“

“Don’t you even dare.” Tony said, shaking his head and pointing a finger. “I am not talking about this.”

“If you’re having _feelings_ , Stark, you should admit up to them like a man.” Clint said, smirking when Tony looked about ready to throw something at him.

“There are no _feelings_. Drop it.” He paused, allowed the disbelieving silence to wash over him, and realised his apparent non-existent feelings were written all over his malleable face. “I don’t know what this is,” he admitted, and the Avengers didn’t have the heart to clarify anything for him when he looked so well stewed in misery.

Stark started when Thor finally introduced himself into the conversation. Sagely, his voice didn’t express any opinion but that of caution. He said: “If Loki learns about this-“

“Then I’m suddenly a vulnerability for the Avengers.” Tony agreed, waving his hand at Thor, nodding his head agreeably.

“Worse,” Natasha tutted, disliking the way that Iron Man had underestimated their enemy. Clint didn’t much approve, either. _Vulnerability_ , indeed. “You’d become a weapon to him, Tony.”

When Tony started tapping on his absent arc reactor the second time, it wasn’t because he was lost in thought. It was because he was too anxious about other things to remember it was no longer there. “Do you see why I didn’t want to talk about this? If I’d remained ignorant then I wouldn’t have had anything to hide from Evil Overlord Wannabe.”

“Do you call everyone you have a crush on stupid names? I mean beyond the norm of stupid names.” Clint asked.

“I think they get meaner the more his feelings develop,” Natasha inserted knowingly. Tony was stepping closer to cold-blooded murder by the second, though both assassins were willing to continue aggravating him, just to see him try.

The moment was broken when Bruce burst in through the elevator, running a hand through his mused hair and freezing when he saw Tony’s face. “What happened?” Clint could understand the scientist’s bewilderment: he had been absent for _five_ minutes.

“Stark’s in love with an egomaniacal super-villain.” Natasha brought him up to date on what he had missed. Tony hissed at her.

“I am _not_ in _love_ with him-“

“Three guesses who that is.” Bruce interrupted, looking distressingly nonplussed. When Tony shot him an expression of betrayal, Bruce just shrugged. “Come on, Tony, I _know_ you. Of all of us, it was going to be you.”

“Why me? Why not Nat or… or…” Looking to the other Avengers, Tony had to concede to a point. He reiterated: “Why not Nat?”

“Because Natasha is sensible.” Bruce said, not quite adding the _obviously_ which was heavily infused in his tone. “I’m not accusing you of anything, Tony, but you have a lot of complicated and unaddressed issues and Loki is very easy to empathise with, especially when you find yourself not just hearing about his freaky past but _living_ it. If it was going to be any one of us, it had to be you that started feeling… feelings.”

“How eloquent.” Tony sneered, before looking to Thor imploringly. “You’re not going to kill me, are you?”

“Why would I do that?”

“Well, he’s your brother for one.” Tony reminded him, sounding like he much preferred discussing all the reasons why beginning to develop serious feelings for Loki was a _bad idea_ than talking about said feelings in the first place.

“Also he’s a psychopath.” Clint piped up.

“Bag of cats.” Bruce reminded them all.

“He’s married.” Cap said, a touch more rationally.

Tony groaned. “Can we stop now? New topic – why aren’t Hawkeye and Black Widow wearing any clothes?”

 _That_ , at least, did do something to swiftly turn heads towards them, some wide-eyed and a few scandalised. Clint scoffed.

“We’re decent.” He moved aside the blanket to show that he was still wearing his boxers and Natasha was, likewise, safely in her underwear. He pointed at Tony again. “You’re just trying to distract us. Now, what do you want to do about it?”

“Do about what?” Tony returned, voice rising with a hint of hysteria as the conversation returned as quickly as it had gone from the topic of Loki and Tony and _the L word_.

“I think they’d be good together.” Natasha commented, ignoring Tony’s spluttering denial, Clint scowl and looking straight to Thor. “They might even let loose their excess energy and aggression on each other and stop bothering the rest of the universe with their overabundance of anger and guilt.”

“This isn’t funny-“ Tony tried to say, but his voice was drowned out by Bruce and even Clint joining in.

“That’d be nice,” Bruce was agreeing, imagining a tower that wasn’t full of stress and long, hyper nights stuck in the lab with an over-grown five year old. Clint was thinking about a rebuilt New York, which was under no threats from alien monsters led by a psychotic god with daddy-issues.

“I like this plan. Can we enact this plan? Thor, do we need your permission for your brother’s hand or something? Tony, do we need to ask Pepper for yours?”

“Guys,” Cap said, holding up a hand with a serious expression on his face. Tony was gazing at him as if he was Jesus’ second coming, awe and love radiating from his relieved expression. It was quickly shattered and morphed into a glower when Steve stated: “We need to make sure Loki feels the same about Tony before we try anything.”

“Reading Loki and his emotions is certainly a challenge,” Thor admitted, shifting when Bruce came to sit by him, the five of them forming an awkward circle in which spoil-sport Tony was not included. He should be grateful; they were trying to do him some good. “But I do not believe that he would be apathetic to Tony if we inserted them into the context of courting.”

“Do you think you can do ‘courting’, Tony, or is dating an abstract concept to you?” Clint harked.

“Ha, ha, you’re the paragon of wit.” He returned sourly, glaring at them all from afar as they started to plan and to laugh and to smile, convinced they were at least trying to do something positive for two sad, lonely men, nut-bags though they both may be.

“This is a bad idea.” Tony was the only voice of reason amid the group for once, and it was unfortunate that no one paid him any attention.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just an update on schedule: I would love to keep with the Wednesday-Sunday thing, but I have exams for the next MONTH so might not happen. I'll try to keep to it, but if I fail then you know why. I'll be back to predictable updates in Feb!


	8. 7 - Scandinavia

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AHHHH. This one went through something of a revamp, which is why it’s late. Well, less of a revamp. Entire rewrite is closer. Trying to rewrite and do character development AND revise is all a little overwhelming, so apologies. On the other hand, I don't think I failed my first exam!

They were starting to repeat themselves. First Asgard, meeting not only Loki just shy of two-hundred years old, a child by Asgardian standards, but briefly glimpsing Thor’s younger counterpart. Now they blinked and found themselves in Scandinavia again, as they had been upon their first jump through time.

The God of Thunder, realising that his fellows were staring to him expectantly, told them that Loki had been to Scandinavia many times throughout history, though the most heavy instances were in the early era of the Vikings.

There had been a settlement they’d quietly bypassed which supported Thor’s claim. The locals certainly, at least as far as Clint was aware, seemed Viking enough. The heroes didn’t linger because Thor had that _look_ about him which kept his company on edge. There were still too many horrors in Loki’s history that they had yet to experience, and Thor couldn’t make peace with the fact that he could not anticipate which of his brother’s epic fuck-ups they’d stumble into next.

And then there was Tony.

The Avengers hadn’t had the time to speak about _it_ since Iron Man had admitted, begrudgingly, that he was feeling funny feels in his feel-maker. Though his friends had initially ribbed him about it, they hadn’t revisited the issue since that first night.

It had almost been a week since their impromptu trip up to the top leaves of Yggdrasil, but in that week the excitement of setting Tony and Loki up had eased into more practical considerations. At first, they had been giddy with being home, thankful nothing too terrible had happened, pleasantly surprised no one had been hurt, even Loki. They had felt happy enough to laugh in Tony’s face, even Thor who had been so determined to insist on his brother’s demise.

He still mentioned it occasionally but prolonged exposure to the Avengers, to time travel, to Loki himself, had him doubting his own resolve. The others had not entertained the notion for even a moment.

However, Loki’s potential death in the present was only a footnote compared to the more private of Clint’s contemplations. He was trying to stay on the positive side, but he knew that Loki could be hazardous. He didn’t confuse Loki being dangerous with Tony being unable to defend himself. If they did start a relationship, Clint wouldn’t be surprised if they were later found ripped to shreds. Physically or psychologically, they had as much potential to be good for one another as they had to completely destroy themselves. Their personalities were so domineering and overbearing that even the smallest altercation could have them at each others’ throats.

For his part, Tony seemed willing (though not particularly excited) to at least try and see whether a relationship could work out, though Thor insisted he’d likely have to woo Loki first.

Considering that they were now well on their way to becoming seasoned time travellers, that could be more complicated than the classic flowers and chocolate approach. Depending on where they were and where they were going, any advance Tony could make may come as an unwelcome surprise to the green-eyed god, or as old news. He may have already have spurned Tony’s attempts at flirtation in a time stream the Avengers had yet to experience. _Wibbly wobbly._

So, no, Tony wasn’t excited. He was probably nervous on the inside, though he was too stubborn to show any indication on the outside.

To show their support, the vague _Operation Toki_ was still go, even if they hadn’t properly hashed out any plan. They were going to wing it. The Avengers were distressingly good at that.

So, Tony had the rights to feel a little antsy. And he wasn’t the only one to felt nervous. Clint had been through his own revelations, a midnight panic attack which Natasha had eased him through, which involved a delayed existential terror suddenly come knocking at midnight.

The archer had started thinking too deeply, and Nat always joked about how he shouldn’t do that. He began pondering not just Loki, not just the mysterious cause of their time travel, but the implications of time travel itself. Inevitably, fear of the unknown had overcome him, and Natasha’s arms had tightened around his waist.

He knew he wasn’t the only one questioning everything he’d ever known, Tony himself had admitted as much himself, clenching his fists when he considered how he couldn’t explain and he was supposed to be the clever one. But Clint had already been through this once, coming out of the Tesseract’s spell shaking, furious, terrified and questioning. He wasn’t ready to go through it again.

It was Tony’s fault. Clint had decided. Him and his feelings towards the green-eyed maniac had forced Clint to consider why he wasn’t angry about it, and then coming up blank for answers. He tried to cling on to the lingering bitterness, but could feel it sifting away from his grasp like sand in an hourglass. There was numbness in place of anger and fear, and any negative emotion he had focused towards Loki had healed over, almost overnight, like a scab. He told Natasha that it didn’t feel right, that he didn’t like it, but she didn’t have the power to return him to feeling the way he had before. It hadn’t helped when he briefly pondered whether or not he wanted to.

She told him that Loki wasn’t the same person he had been in the past. The Loki who attacked New York had shifted and altered so many times in his history that jolting in and out in no coherent order had completely shattered the perception Clint had focused his rage towards. The mad green-eyed monster with his glowing spear and his thirst of world domination had not been present in any instance they had met Loki since, and so Clint was left to re-evaluate what he’d thought he’d known and come away from the experiences as different as Loki was.

Which brought them to the topic of tragedy. Loki certainly set himself up to be one, walking into dangerous situations without taking heed of the consequences. Whilst he might not ask for it, he still brought it on himself.

Be Loki dead as Thor still half-heartedly insisted, or alive but the same flavour of insane that he had been during the Battle of New York, then it was tragic. Perhaps not for Loki, who wouldn’t feel the grief either way, but certainly for the people who loved him. Tragic for Thor, who loved his brother indiscriminately, and tragic for the emotions that Tony couldn’t quite temper. He forgot, as they all did, that he was no longer young and happy and full of hope for the future. Seeing him alive so often altered their grip on their own reality, and sometimes they were struck with the sudden notion that all of Loki’s dreams of a happy life were doomed to burn.

With no evidence to support the notion that Loki was dead, Clint couldn’t feel more than a brief flicker of misery for Thor’s loss. What he could feel, however, was the impact Tony’s grievous mistake.

Natasha had pressed her forehead against his by then, intertwining their legs, supportive and steady as Clint tried to breathe in through his nose and out through his mouth.

“Tony’s in love with a lie,” He’d whispered into the night. “The Loki we saw, or the next Loki we meet, will not be the one who exists now. _If_ Loki does. What if he _is_ dead? What will Stark do then?”

“Mourn,” Natasha answered gently, stroking her fingers down the arms which were clutched desperately around her waist. “He’ll have to accept it and move on, but not without help from his friends. From us. He’ll be fine.”

“Why did it have to be Loki?”

“Two pieces of a soul?” Natasha suggested as Clint pressed closer. “Peas in a pod? Birds of a feather?”

He huffed out a breath of laughter, ruffling her hair with his breath, and she had closed his eyes with gentle fingers, shushing him and soothing him even when he started babbling again.

“We’re skipping through time like it’s a jump-rope. We’re meeting Lokis, _plural_ , from the past. We’re directly affecting and even _altering_ time. Do you see how bad this is?”

“I do.” She assured him, kissing his eyelids gently when he struggled to keep them closed. “But I also see what time it is _now_. Existential crises can wait until the morning.”

It had been a type of talk therapy, semi-cathartic just to speak to someone he trusted, and the exhaustion of the day caught up with him as Natasha eased his sleep with gentle, breathy Russian.

All that panic – not forgotten the next morning, but certainly trivialised in the light of day – rushed back now as he stood in the middle of Norway in winter, returning in the form of crawling unease.

“Something bad is going to happen,” he spoke into the air, but whether he spoke specifically about the trees or generally about their entire messed-up situation was lost to him. Tony was the only one who heard him, and they shared a significant look in which they both sincerely hoped that whatever danger was looming at the end of this journey wouldn’t involve anything resembling _emotions_.

Already, the inventor looked about ready to go home. Unable to do that, he might have been considering throwing up in a bush.

“How are the feelings?” Clint asked, bordering on snide to cover his own restlessness.

Tony flinched, as if he were about to make a witty retort, but caught himself in the nick of time. However, Tony Stark not spitting out some sort of clever one-liner in an attempt to seem indifferent told as much about his state of mind as speaking would have done.

“Awful, then?” Clint didn’t need any confirmation to that, because he knew first-hand how intrusive and destabilising any sort of emotional involvement could be. He remembered a mission far into the past, a trip to Russia and a fiery red-head who had been waiting on the other side. It ended in a face-off between arrow and pistol, heavy breaking, and the potential for a life to be changed. Clint had taken that chance and had never regretted it.

But Natasha was one thing, and a good woman at heart. Loki was a completely different story.

Loki had lived too long and survived through too many things to be good. Too clever, too pessimistic, too underhanded and unappreciated. Natasha had almost gotten to that point when she had been only twenty years old. Clint couldn’t imagine what two _thousand_ years could do to a psyche.

Somewhere down the line, Loki had snapped. And the more they learned about the days of yesteryear, in which Loki could smile without malice and love his brother unabashedly, or in which Thor could return that devotion unapologetically, when morals were still black and white rather than entirely dismissed, the Avengers were starting to recognise the true extent of Loki’s descent into madness.

The boy who had greeted them in a boat with a fear which had rapidly morphed into fascination was not the same creature who stumbled through a portal and immediately murdered seven people before he’d caught his breath.

Clint knew this. Tony knew this. None of them were stupid enough to not recognise the difference, but the Avengers had spent a long time away from their present and with it the violent visage of the Loki who had almost levelled New York was fading. Growing in his place was a bright-eyed, calm and quick man, who more often than not greeted the Avengers with warm familiarity and trust.

In Norway, Clint told Tony, “Just be careful,” as they travelled deeper into the forest.

“Try not to kill anyone.” Tony returned snappishly. Clint couldn’t take his tone personally, remembering with vivid lucidity his own sharply worded argument for Natasha’s life, debating with Fury and the entire set of intimidating SHEILD commanding officers that she was more of an asset than a menace. In that conversation, he had been forced to recognise that the rest of the world had a hard time seeing the woman in the same forgiving light that he had. Clint hadn’t been able to look past the good in Natasha, whilst the rest of the universe refused to dismiss the bad.

This was very much the same, but, that said, it couldn’t hurt to remind Tony that the subject of his severely misplaced affections was honestly a psychopathic murdering alien who had spent the majority of his life getting into trouble and shedding layers of his own sanity like coats.

What was perhaps worse was that they didn’t know when or where Loki had completely lost his mind, and visiting out of order meant that they could be before his inevitable mental break or after. They had to keep on their toes, because if it was _after_ then the Avengers were officially back in Loki’s bad books. And bad books, to Loki, equated to much the same as an assassin’s to-do list.

Thor said it was only recently that Loki had started going loco, but there was always something more going on behind an abrupt _snap_. Clint didn’t want to accidentally trigger it pre-emptively, as their very presence could likely inflict more damage than help. Especially since they kept on fucking up. They’d killed Loki _twice_ , and those instances weren’t going to fade quickly from memory.

“Seriously,” he said, just as Tony started to pick up the pace and Clint decided to give the man a bit of space. “Be careful.”

“When am I not?”

“Would you like that answer chronologically?” He called out, but Tony only waved before stepping out of hearing range. He went to stand next to Bruce, lingering just behind Thor who led their way.

Thor didn’t seem to be heading in any particular direction, just following various trails on vague excuses, aiming, in general, away from humans. Aimlessly wondering the forest was as good as any plan, since Loki always found them. They’d had yet to wander astray when following Thor’s instinct.

Cap and Natasha were taking up the rear, and the archer quietly joined them.

Cap asked, “What was that all about?”

“Just reminding Iron Man that just because he loves someone doesn’t mean they won’t kill him.”

“Emotions usually aggravate a situation,” Natasha added, prior experience seeping into her tone. “It’s better he keeps his feelings in check.”

“Easier said than done.” Cap pointed out, switching places with Bruce for his turn to try and get Tony to talk about his feelings.

“You’re taking this all very calmly,” The scientist then said to Clint as he moved back to join them.

“Taking what calmly?” Though Clint wasn’t ignorant about what the scientist was trying to imply.

“Loki was in your head,” Bruce spoke softly, face a gentle, understanding frown. “Yet you seem quite happy to let Tony do what he wants.”

“Tony’s a big boy. If he has a stupid crush on a guy who’d sooner rip out his spine and choke him with it, then that’s his problem. All we can do is keep reminding him Loki’s dangerous, and keep an eye on them both.”

“That’s big of you,” Bruce smiled, and Clint wanted to return the expression, feeling pride surge through him.

“I guess it is.”

But it wasn’t forgiveness building in his bones, it was understanding. This far away from New York, every meeting involving a Loki who had yet to attack his home, Clint had been forced, along with a bit of guidance from Natasha, to accept that Loki had yet to prove himself intrinsically evil. So, Tony could go on being reckless with his emotions, and if it caused them all a little less stress then, yes, Clint was going to support it.

One day they would re-meet the crazed man who had been the cause of the Battle of New York, and Clint had been persuaded to put aside his ire for then. He didn’t want to admit it out loud to his team-mates but it was a surprisingly easy task.

“I wish we knew precisely where we are,” Thor said, booming voice projecting through the trees to reach the three Avengers trailing at the tail-end of the group. “This could be at any point of this era when Loki was especially active in Migard. That we are here is unfortunate and may potentially endanger our mission to encourage the courting of Tony and my brother.”

“Don’t remind me.” Tony returned.

“We’re safe from dinosaurs, at least.” Captain America said lightly, to which Clint quickly opened his mouth to dissuade him from talking.

“Hey, don’t give anyone ideas. With all these failures to kill Loki, it’s a surprise that whoever is taking us on this magical mystery tour is still doing it. He might eventually get fed up and take it upon himself to drop us back in the Jurassic.”

“Who says it’s a ‘he’?” Natasha defended, and Clint conceded to her infinite wisdom.

“I agree. Getting someone else to murder your enemy is sneaky and back-handed. Clean and feminine.”

“Don’t give _me_ ideas.” Black Widow returned.

Thor stopped suddenly, freezing in position, his arm outstretched to catch Steve and Tony who almost crashed into his back. He indicated for quiet, and the other group members complied, warily eyeing the surroundings for hostiles.

They weren’t scared. As Tony had established in Asgard, they couldn’t be seen by many, if anyone at all, excepting Loki. Tony and Bruce were still working on figuring out _who_ could or couldn’t see them; it’d certainly calm everyone’s nerves if they could differentiate.

They didn’t relax from their defensive stances when the foliage shook and out of it emerged a wary-eyed young man, a boy probably in his early twenties, who had a serious face and a dark pair of eyes. Speaking of being seen, said eyes were focused with deadly laser-accuracy on the strangers to these lands. The Avengers certainly painted a colourful picture, out of time and out of fashion, and even Thor who supposedly inspired these people looked starkly alien in comparison. Of course, Thor _was_ an alien, but that wasn’t the point.

He pointed an arrow at them slowly, eyes catching, for once, on Clint first, who quickly returned the gesture.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you, kid.” Clint warned.

“Who are you?” He returned curiously. If he was intimidated he pointedly refused to show it.

Thor took the lead, actually qualified to talk to someone of this time period, holding out his hands in a show of peace. “I’m Thor,” he announced, and as his tone had expected, the boy’s attitude quickly shifted. What he hadn’t seen coming was how the stranger’s arrow shifted from Clint’s forehead to his.

The boy backed up when Thor tried to move forward, insisting they were not here to cause trouble, and the bow was not lowered. Thor was stopped from trying to move closer by Steve and Tony grabbing his arms.

“Why are you here?” The boy asked from his safe distance, glaring headedly.

“We’re trying to find my brother.” Thor admitted.

The boy nodded, bow not wavering even as his voice thinned stressfully. “We knew you were coming eventually.”

“We?” Clint asked, but a closer look at the boy and maybe a head-tilt was all he had to do to find his answer. Clint whistled lowly, realisation as to who he was and why the kid could perceive them coming alongside his revelation.

“Fenris,” Thor announced, almost wondrously, eyes widening as he looked again. There was little resemblance between father and son, but he was as lithe as Loki, with the same dark expression. Whether it was something about his eyes, or the shape of his nose, it wasn’t entirely clear. However, now they knew it was a surprise that they hadn’t noticed immediately. That probably had something to do with the white-blond hair which framed his face in chin-length waves, held away from his eyes with neat plaits.

“Loki’s son?” Steve asked, just to be clear, but Fenris didn’t reply.

“What is your business with my father?”

“We must talk to him,” Thor said, cutting across Tony when it looked like he was going to open his mouth. “It is imperative we see him as soon as possible.”

Fenris’s lipped thinned further with Thor’s pleading, distrusting the strained tone of voice. He didn’t understand the desperation, and nor should he. Clint didn’t want to try to explain the situation to the boy, the story about time-travel and some unknown threat gunning after his father, and how every time the Avengers showed up, something was guaranteed to go wrong. Clint had heard too many horror stories about Fenris, and he didn’t want to see any of it first-hand.

“Why today? It is Yule, you realise?”

“No,” Thor admitted, looking to the sky briefly as if the answers would be writ in the slow lightening of the day. “I did not know.”

“We do not want trouble today.” He snapped. “Nor any day. Leave us be.”

“Please Fenris,” Thor asked, but the boy was resolute.

“I think not, Thor Odinson.”

He moved quickly, spinning and disappearing through the undergrowth, but the Avengers were not far behind.

Whilst Fenris had the advantage of knowing the forest, Thor had two thousand years of tracking to rely on as he stalked after the boy, the other heroes hot on his tail. Iron Man took to the air, dodging awkwardly around trees, but keeping pace with the young archer.

It didn’t take too long for Fenris to spot that they were coming up behind him, startling when he spotted them over his shoulder.

Thor smiled gently when Fenris stopped dead and turned, chest huffing with irritation at his pursuers. Without saying anything, the boy tested their dedication, heading forward again, only to observe how Thor’s sweet expression didn’t alter even as he too took another step.

He stopped when Fenris did. The predictable motions were rapidly tugging at the already thin patience of the son of Loki, and eventually he whirled to face them, looking as if he had half a mind to hit Thor around the head with the wood of his bow.

“We will see your father, Fenris,” Thor said, speaking with such surety that Fenris almost caved then and there. Then he shook his head and let out a huff, furious at his new found company.

“I do not trust you.”

“Perhaps that is wise,” Thor said, glancing between the boy and the Avengers, seemingly relieved when no one came out with a damning wise-crack or cutting remark. The heroes had allowed Thor to take the lead; this was his family after all. Clint might have said something if he wasn’t focused so completely on the arrow nocked and aimed at his friends. Tony might have said something if he wasn’t busy sulking.

Fenris, when he started moving again, didn’t offer them an open invitation, but it wasn’t a rejection. He was a clever kid, recognising the difference between stubbornness and a lost cause. When it came to his brother, Thor was certainly a lost cause. He’d outstare the sun if it meant a chance to be with Loki for a few more seconds.

Following him but knowing when to engage and when to leave well enough alone, Thor stepped backwards a few paces so he was on level footing with Tony. Tony sighed, already foretelling what was coming.

Thor said quietly, “Perhaps now is not the best time to put our plan into effect, Tony.”

“Yeah, no kidding.”

“It is for the better.”

“Yep.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s alright.” Tony returned, patting Thor’s arm with his gauntlet.

The god gave him a long, sad look, understanding better than anybody what it felt like to feel affection for a creature as flighty and complicated as Loki. Tony batted him away tersely, urging him to keep an eye on the pale-haired Lokison whilst he himself fell back into step with Bruce, the Avenger the inventor felt the most comfortable with, grateful for the silence which wasn’t broken by any invasive questions by his proclaimed science-bro.

Clint, however, wasn’t interested in silence. Nor was Natasha, who seemed as tense as the boy leading the group. Clint crept forward to linger behind the two scientists, and said: “Okay, so question time: How can mini-Loki there see us?”

“Magic,” Bruce answered, and Tony nodded in conjunction with the man’s claims.

“Magic?”

“People with magic seem to be able to see us. People like Loki and presumably Fenris. It’s also why that demonic monstrosity of a horse could see us too.” Tony elaborated.

Clint snorted. “Is that seriously what we’re going with? A shrug and a ‘maybe magic did it, right I’m off’?”

“It’s just a theory,” Bruce reminded them both. “But it seems to make the most sense.”

“I hate magic.” Tony grumbled, and Clint patted him insincerely.

“You’re just grouchy because the wooing of your dear sweet psychopath has to be temporarily put on hold.”

“Don’t you have eggs to go sit on, birdbrain?”

“What a comeback!” Clint replied, clutching at his chest. “Your brilliance burns. I need some ice.”

“I’m sure Loki would comply.” Bruce said.

Tony laughed. “Yeah, let’s _not_ talk to him about ice. Or giants, while we’re at it. Woe forbid we mix the two.”

“I don’t think we’re ready to face that fall out.” Clint agreed, falling back towards where Natasha and Steve had regrouped, lowly discussing an action plan if Fenris deliberately led them astray or turned on them suddenly.

“I’ll just shoot him,” Clint inserted, miming the action of letting loose his string. It didn’t seem to reassure them.

“Is Tony okay?” Steve asked, bleeding heart that he was, and Clint shrugged.

“Well, he’s not exactly chipper, but I wouldn’t be either. Children are big. I mean, I knew that Loki has kids, but I don’t know how much Tony has really thought any of this through.”

“Did any of us?”

“In my defence, I was drawing the line at animal children. Spider-horse was one thing, but a giant wolf and snake born of two humanoids?” Clint frowned at the admittedly tall figure leading them all. “Though he’s not as canine as I expected.”

Steve nodded stiffly, shuffling up to stand next to Tony and grill the inventor himself.

Slowly, the trees started to spread out. Not much, but it became less of a struggle to navigate through the bark. However, a thick cluster suddenly opened into a wide clearing, in the centre of it, a sturdy home which looked even more out of place than any of the Avengers did. It wasn’t modern in design, but it was certainly ahead of its time. Made of stone and crisp lines, it was both impressive and quaint in turn.

“It’s beautiful,” Thor praised. Fenris smiled faintly, pushing at a door at the side of the house – smaller and less grand than the front door – which let them straight into the kitchen.

There was no one in the room, but the fire was blazing in the hearth and Clint scampered over to it. Early morning Norway’s winter clad only in his SHIELD uniform wasn’t friendly on the arms. He pushed his hands almost into the fire, twitching and stretching them as sensation started to return to his muscles.

Fenris left them in the kitchen whilst the group stood awkwardly at the door and looked around. Thor left his weapons at a table by the window, which was covered, as all surfaces of the cramped room, with an eclectic collection of seemingly magical (or at least mystical) objects. There were jars with runic labels filled with unsettling liquids, and varying sizes of strange instruments and pots littering the shelves. Animals from hooks which were dangling from the ceiling, including a great beast of a creature off in a dark, cool corner.

There was a wide table in the centre, and Thor took a seat near the head whilst the other Avengers (bar Clint, who remained crouched by the fire, and Natasha who struck a pose by the door) occupied one of the five remaining chairs.

They weren’t given any time to poke around at the more concerning items littered around, being disturbed almost instantly when another male burst through the front door, almost throwing Natasha from her steadfast position.

“Fenris, the tree!” He exclaimed, toting an axe in one hand and some leaves in the other, before his voice got lost in his throat and he frowned at the woman he’d almost tripped over. “Do I know you?”

He looked around the table, observing the Avengers with a surprised expression, before waving his weapon gently. “If you’re intruders, you should know that I am armed.”

Thor moved to answer, pushing himself back and starting to stand, when Fenris came back through upon hearing the commotion and glared at the younger man. The new-comer shook the leaves in Fenris’s direction, ignoring their guests when he realised the older boy wasn’t concerned about their presence.

“You unfroze the tree?”

“Revitalised.” He replied, smiling guilelessly. “It’s easier to chop. You were complaining about the ice settling on the bark.”

Fenris huffed, moving around the table and ducking his head to dodge the hanging carcasses. There were a few birds which he brushed past, and he smoothed over their rumpled feathers before pressing the broadside of a blade against the stranger’s chest and opening his hand. “Swap.”

“I like the axe.”

“And I like a neatly chopped Yule log.”

“I can do it!”

“You can stay here and keep an eye on our guests.”

The boy looked over at the Avengers, then to Fenris, a smile starting to creep up his face. To the heroes, it was disturbingly familiar. “I didn’t know we were expecting company today.”

“Nor I.” Fenris said, pulling the weapon from the boy’s grip as soon as he recognised his distraction, but his tone seemed resigned, knowing what was soon to burst from the younger male’s lips.

“Does he know? I’m going to tell him.”

Fenris stopped the sudden jolt forward by pressing the thick blade against the boy’s neck. The other male was not slow in returning the gesture with the knife, and the two were held in a tense suspension, staring at each other and waiting for some kind of give.

The Avengers, in reply, all jolted to their feet, frozen with fear and anticipation as they watched the boys fight their battle of wills, but the new perspective and lack of proximity brought their differences into sharp contrast, but it was their likenesses which were much more striking.

The nameless newcomer had a hair colour the opposite of Fenris’s and there was a smattering of stubble across his young face. He couldn’t have been younger than nineteen, bright-eyed and deadly still as he waited. He kept the spey-blade against his brother’s throat, and Hawkeye’s attention had been drawn to it.

The hold of the knife was what unclouded the young man’s identity to the group. Thor had obviously clued in early on, and the rest of the Avengers could make a good guess based on their mythology homework and the recognisable curl of dark hair.

“Morning, brother,” Jörmungand announced to Fenris, and it was spoken like a confirmation, eyes glancing back over to their wary audience. He moved back his knife on the good-will assumption that Fenris would copy the motion, but it took more than that to convince his sibling he wasn’t going to run straight to their father.

“Hel is telling them.” Fenris informed the boy. “She does not go out of her way to incur mother’s wrath.”

“Mother is not delicate.”

“Well, neither are you. And certainly not with your words.”

It was easy to see how the two of them could be related, smiling at each other even through threats, until a gentle cough broke the tension, and Fenris and Jörmungand leapt away from each other as if burnt.

“Good morning, mother!” Jörmungand exclaimed, almost too loudly, as a blonde woman with her hair combed back with plaits, similar to Fenris in everything but gender, glared at the two of them.

“ _Go_ , right now. Take your sister and go.” she said, pulling along a dark-haired teenager from beside her, who looked ahead with blank eyes.

Jörmungand stashed the knife in his belt, bending down to look the smaller girl in the eye, face suddenly gentle as he tucked a stray hair away from her pale face. “Shall we go chop down the tree? It’s so beautiful, it will be a perfect way to celebrate.”

The girl, who could only be Hel, didn’t answer, and Clint frowned as he watched her be led out, dead-eyed and silent, by her brother. The archer caught Bruce’s frown, as did the other bowman in the room.

“Fenris,” The woman snapped and he scampered away quickly at the sharp tone in her voice. She then announced herself to the guests, her name was Angrboða as they already knew, picking up a knife longer than the blade Jörmungand had pressed against his brother’s neck, flicking it absently through the air. It was as much of a warning as a defence mechanism, just as had been Fenris’s iron grip around his weapons.

She gestured for them to sit, her mind obviously elsewhere. Natasha did not find herself a seat, remaining where she had stood before Jörmungand had bowled her over. This was what caught back the attention of the fidgeting blonde, and she scowled at all of them.

“That you come today of all days,” she said. “I had almost forgotten you existed at all.”

“We are not here maliciously,” Thor assured her, and she shook her head, holding up a hand.

“Then why are you here?”

“I merely want to speak to my brother.”

Angrboða’s laugh was thin with hysteria, the motion of her head almost violent as she tossed it to and fro, anxious and careless with the knife in her hand. She scratched at her arm with one hand, the grip on the hilt of the knife tightening the longer the Avengers stayed on the defensive. Clint kept his sights trained on her, prepared to do his worst if she started to pose a threat to his friends. It didn’t matter whose wife she was, nor whose mother, not when she was toting a weapon directed at Dr Banner’s head.

“If that was your intention you would have come long before now.”

“It is not our choice, lady,” Thor tried, but she only glared.

“I know what they have been saying. I know of what they accuse my children, but they are not what the rumours say. Not even the villagers believe it.”

“Nor I,” Thor returned, raw and wounded, a scabbed over wound torn open once again, and it almost hurt how much his words rung with untruth. Clint was glad Loki _wasn’t_ there, else he might have scratched out his brother’s eyes.

Angrboða looked moments from doing much the same, falling still for a moment until her agitated movements started again. “I wish you out of my house before my husband sees.”

Stark was staying suspiciously quietly, having remained standing awkwardly in the corner of the kitchen, overlooked for his stillness, whilst Angrboða moved to close the door separating the kitchen from the rest of the household, but she was too late.

“Wife,” Loki suddenly spoke, just on time like he had been there more much longer (and Clint didn’t believe he hadn’t been), slipping like a snake under her figure and splitting the heroes from the armed woman, holding open his hands. Tony started, stumbling forwards with surprised, and all else in the room jumped at the motion.

Angrboða grew especially agitated, so Loki gently reached forward to stroke a hand across her cheek, over her hair. She pulled away, pushing his hand from her face by pressing the blade against his wrist. Habits handed down from parents to children, whether it be the violence or the restlessness which seemed to have her constantly moving.

“I will speak to them,” he said softly, concernedly, body stiff as ice, letting her move around him. The Avengers held their breath as her eyes flickered to and fro from her husband to their company. “I will lead them away.”

“The children have gone.”

“No, they haven’t.”

“I told them to go.”

“They will not have listened.”

“I am their mother.”

“They are grown now. They will fight, as we taught them.”

“ _You_ taught them,” she hissed, pushing at his chest and snarling, ugly and animalistic. “Take them now, else I will gut them and feed them to my children so we can sleep well at night.”

Loki looked to his brother, eyes jerking pointedly outside, and the Avengers were on their feet and piling through the door, gone as quickly as they had come.

“Into the house!” Loki, the last one to leave the kitchen, barked at his young who stood far off to the west edge of the clearing, posed underneath a tall Oak in full bloom. They obeyed without question, Jörmungand still clinging onto the hand of her sister and leading her way. She followed silently, and for a moment, as they grew closer to the house, Clint felt as if she was looking straight through him. Chills he sooner associated with the Tesseract than a girl crawled over his skin, though a second glance found that she was no more looking at him than she was at anything else.

“Is she alright?” Tony asked, having stepped up besides Loki without realising, watching as Loki’s offspring slunk through a hidden door on the opposite side of the house.

“No.” The god replied sharply, causing Tony to flinch. Loki immediately softened, and put his hand to Tony’s metal arm.

He elaborated, more carefully this time: “We do not know why. We fear it is a bad mix of magic, but since my sons have shown no ill-effect we did not presume that my daughter would-“ he stopped, and dropped his hand to his side. “You did warn me.”

“I did?”

“You will,” Loki corrected, waving his hand to dismissive whilst Tony scowled.

“Sure, let’s piss around with freewill. Because all of this isn’t philosophically and scientifically ridiculous enough.”

“Do stop talking, Stark.”

Loki had turned towards the trees, passing his brother as he led the group, reaching up to card his fingers through the bottom of Thor’s long hair as he went by. It was a familial gesture, seen as Jörmungand touched his sister’s hair to assure her, or perhaps himself, that they were together. Loki’s actions now seemed to hold the same sentiment, and the Avengers were fools to follow silently, transfixed by the gentle, quiet misery they had all fallen into.

It hadn’t escaped anyone’s notice that Loki’s hair was almost shorn completely off – short to the point that it was the same length as Clint’s. If Loki had access to gel, it’d be outright modern.

The blasted thing was that the look suited him, curling at the top of his head, making his face both sharper, along with softening the contours of his expression. It wasn’t really a wonder that Tony had jolted so quickly upon spotting him, completely smitten with the less severe hair-style.

Clint had read somewhere that short hair was indicative of slavery in Viking communities. Loki, living in a large house with a wife and children, did not suit the bill of _slave_ , or even _servant_. The hairstyle certainly set him apart, however – it seemed almost conspicuously _anti-Viking_ , as if reactionary to his surroundings. It wouldn’t be surprising if it _had_ been simply a decision made out of being contrary at a personality trait level. It was probably a compulsion on Loki’s part to not fit in. He always liked surprising others.

Similarly, whilst Fenris copied his mother’s length, Jörmungand’s hair had only just stretched to his ears, short by comparison. It was something in their veins, the obsession with doing the opposite of what was expected of them. Impulsive, idiotic, even dangerous. It’s what led Loki into trouble time and time again, and what would eventually drive him into a situation that would break him. He seemed close to shattering now, gait wavering as they travelled.

“Have you come to kill me?” He asked lightly when the group reached a particularly dark area of the woods, Loki’s face plunged into shadows as he stood in the early morning, the sun only just starting to peek over the horizon. Here in the dense forest, there was little light to help them navigate. Clint had found Natasha’s side, and their shoulders were pressed together to ensure the other was safe.

“This seems more dangerous for us than you.” Tony dared to point out, and Loki laughed. It was a fragile sound, eerie with echoes. He was shaking his head, his skin gleaming bone-white underneath the fragile light that refract through the skeleton trees.

“You can only be here for a reason. I have heard the stories, brother.”

“We have all heard the stories! We believe nothing!” Thor assured him, but whilst it may be true now, the heroes were not stupid enough to believe that when Thor was as understanding when he was Loki’s age.

“I don’t know what you want from us-“

Thor stepped forwards, taking Loki into his arms. “Nothing, brother! I want nothing from you!”

“If anything happens to them-”

“Nothing will happen,” Thor tugged him closer as he breathed heavily into his brother’s shoulder, his panic making his chest heave and his lungs close. He could hardly make a noise, and the tears that dripped down his cheeks were not from sadness, but from fear.

\--

It had taken Loki a long time to calm, and even more for them to gather him somewhere brighter, where they attempted to build a fire to fight off the cold. The sorcerer among them assisted when he got bored of watching them struggle, and Hawkeye, sleeveless and shivering, instantly curled up and refused to be belittled for not being more prepared. He hadn’t sodding well known. He’d be laughing at all of _them_ if they had shown up in a desert rather than Scandinavia.

It had taken some effort, but Thor and Tony had pooled together, a small bit of careful manipulation from Natasha and mild, gentle urging from Cap and Bruce to contrast against the more brusque questions of Loki’s brother and inventor, and Loki started to talk about his children. It was a group effort really, excluding Clint who didn’t want to get involved in case it blew up in his face. Which, inevitably, he knew it would.

“They call him _Úlfr_ ,” Loki laughed, lost in a tale of when Fenris had engaged every able man in the nearby village in a scuffle which had almost destroyed the entire town. Again. “They find him as dangerous and fierce as a wolf. Fenris has taken a shine to it, demanding us to call him Fenrisúlfr in company.”

Thor smiled, sadly, and so did Loki. “Do they know?”

“They know something is amiss, but we will not tell them. Let them have this for a little while longer.”

“Have you thought about trying to _avoid_ the situation?” Bruce asked.

“Have you yours? Or do your journeys through time excite you?”

“Does your tragedy excite you?” Tony asked, a vicious blow which left Loki stunned. From Natasha, or from Clint, who had certainly been thinking the same thing, it would not have been so cutting. But from Tony, Mr. Snark and Avoid, the man who would rather drown dark thoughts in booze and let them fester than deal with them up-front, it was a surprise for everyone.

“Tell me more about your children,” Thor asked, almost pleadingly, looking for a connection he’d never considered to ask after before. Loki recognised the distraction when he saw it, and tore himself away from the ugly look he had graced Tony with. The inventor, for his part, was dealing with meeting Loki in this new context (and this may be the worst time for it) about as well as anyone expected. Cap moved to put a soothing hand on his shoulder, but Tony did not let him.

Loki was speaking, saying, “It is not Fenris, but Jörmungand I worry for. He is practically unteachable, distractable. He refuses to sit still for longer than it takes him to eat and it is not unknown for him to be careless, whether that be with himself or with other people’s property. _My_ property, more often than not.” He didn’t seem bothered, a prince born and raised; he was used to never being wont for anything, and even when removed from his title and royal family he used his dazzling wits to keep his new-found loves more than comfortable. He actually sounded fond. “He is not unlike his mother.”

“What of his behaviour? Has he earned himself a name as Fenris has?”

“He is as difficult, though he argues more than aggresses. It is hard to keep him out of a cell, and it is hard to keep him _in_ cell. He’s too much of a problem for even the guards to manage.”

“He must be your pride and joy.” Clint said, and Loki looked to the south where his house and family lay, chosing not to read the thick sarcasm in the archer’s voice.

\--

Distantly, in the direction they headed towards, there was a great shouting, a young man cursing inventively enough that even Tony Stark looked impressed. Jörmungand’s yelling was returned by Angrboða’s, who in turn said a few things that made Clint want to blush. It was followed by laughter, loud and extended and unnatural. However, Loki didn’t seem worried. The god found humour in his family, aggression the norm in the culture that urged even the women to display their basest of instincts to cope with the testosterone-fuelled atmosphere.

“It is Yule,” Loki reminded them. “Will you stay for the celebration?”

“We don’t get to pick when we leave.”

“Then stay you shall!”

“Won’t your wife have something to say about that?” Tony reminded him, and if Loki heard the strain in his voice he didn’t deem it worth a question.

“Not now,” he breathed. His smile grew easy and lazy and free the closer they drew to his home, and the Avengers could feel it too, like a magic had been infused through the trees, winding inside them like a drug. They all forgot, just for a moment, that they were waiting for something bad to happen; for Loki to finally shatter.

He didn’t. The pace increased, and suddenly they were all running, completely overcome with a misplaced euphoria none of the heroes could explain or understand. Loki didn’t let them ask, appearing back in front of the house and wrapping his arms around his wife, who let herself be whisked into his embrace.

Clint was watching for Tony’s face to falter, but there was something poisonous in the air, smoky and unknown, which allowed nothing but joy to feed into their bloodstream.

They did not realise it until they were in the middle of it, but they were in the midst of a vital Pagan ritual. From the western village there was the distant rumble of mortal life, but it was unimportant here, where the blooming tree had never been cut down, and they were lost among magic and doped up like a junkie. All Clint wanted to do was smile.

“The magic of Yule,” Loki breathed, in the middle of a ritual, the flames climbing unnaturally into the air as the parents muttered strange, heavy words towards the fire. Hel tipped her head, the first independent movement the Avengers had seen from her, to watch the dying sparks dance amid the stars.

The celebration stripped any years away from Loki’s face, the anxiousness from Angrboða’s figure disappearing under the toasts and the prayers and the sickly paleness of their skin evaporated as they swayed and grinned.

“He’s a father,” Clint hissed at Tony when Loki was again distracted by his brother, who clung to him and asked him questions freely, brightly, unfettered by the terrible future which weighed down on him so heavily. None of them had before noticed, but seeing him inebriated showed the Avengers how much Thor carried, and all in the name of his family.

This part of history was a time when the two had been estranged. His interest in Loki’s life now was fuelled by his curiosity, as it was as much a mystery to Thor as it was to the rest of them. All he knew was that Loki had been married and had three children from the pairing, though their father had never approved of the coupling. Tragedy later struck, but Thor seemed too relaxed for them to be worried that today was the day that this little family, isolated in the woodland of Scandinavia, would be split apart.

Clint said, “He’s a _good_ father. Hell, he’s _happy_.”

Tony nodded, as doped up and elated as the rest of them, ignorant of the pain this might have caused him under any other circumstance. “I can see that. I _knew_ that already.”

“Yeah, but this is weird.” Clint said, his brain slow like mashed potatoes had replaced any grey matter. “Not the usual MO- uh, Modus- eh, whatever that stands for. There’s no reason for us to kill him here.”

Tony shrugged, but was dealing better with the effects of the seasonal magic than Clint was. “Perhaps it was more like an _intelligent_ design. What can I do now but admit defeat? Children and marriage _and_ happiness? Who am I to destroy that?”

“So you think whoever it is, Mr-Send-the-Avengers-On-Mission-ImpossiStupid, is trying to stop you from getting to Loki?” Clint finally managed to work out, and Tony shrugged, neither a _yes_ or a _no_ , but certainly indicating that there was a measure of success in the tactic. Clint was appalled, though that had to be due to the glee infecting the air.

“Are we giving up then?”

“Yes.”

“For now, anyway.”

“No, Clint,” Tony snapped, lowering his voice again when Fenrir sent them a curious glance. “For good.”

“That’s really disappointing. I was looking forward to seeing you both tear each other in two.”

Tony managed a laugh, nodding, but the picture Loki was painting now, content and gentle and paternal, made Clint wonder whether _this_ man was even capable of approaching another with spite or even anger. He danced with his daughter with a gentle touch,  swaying to and fro to the music that didn’t exist, yet all of them could hear. Tony was trying not to stare.

It ended when Hawkeye and Fenris were in the middle of a bout of archery, facing off against each other with Clint trying to impress their audience with increasingly ridiculous trick arrows. The transition between the past and the present was as quick and simple as normal, a blink between Scandinavia and Stark’s tower, but it had been joined with colours and a jolt of motion sickness which almost had Clint retching all over Natasha.

He lay back with a gasp, wondering whether he had really seen a face behind his eyelids, a complicated black pattern still causing havoc with his eyes but quickly fading, or whether it had been a drug-induced illusion.

He still felt the magic’s affects, and was joyful enough to remember that their last sight before reappearing in their own time was that of Angrboða, calm for the first time since they had met her, curled up tightly against her husband to fight the cold, whilst Loki sat giddy, expression bright and exuberant, glad to be alive.

Clint was too content to recognise that he had never seen that look on Loki’s face before.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoa, this was meant to be a lot happier, but the tone suddenly shifted with the rewrite.


	9. 19 - Svartlfheim

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, guys! It’s a Sunday! It’s also Feb, so hello again! My workload looks to be immense but I seem to have the entirety of Wednesday to spend pissing around with words, so hopefully I’ll be able to slot back into schedule neatly. Wish me luck, and with some praying I might even see you on Wednesday.

Tony wouldn’t admit it to anyone, but he was struggling to find an answer. And Clint knew that he’d never hear the genius admit it, because pride was as strong a paralytic as hopelessness was a tongue-loosener.

Their unpredictable movements through time were beginning to take their toll on them all, but Tony was taking it particularly hard. Stark and The Sudden Bout of Petulance wasn’t the hardest case to crack, but the Avengers would have been more content to believe that their resident inventor was merely nursing a broken heart than being aware of a deeper, more profound undertone. It wouldn’t have been obvious but for the relative lack of drinking and the fact Tony had moved into his lab for good.

Contrary to popular belief – and Clint had to re-evaluate his entire world-view when he’d figured it out – Tony was not much for playboying. Maybe it had been the break up with Pepper, or perhaps he had never been as bad as the papers (and himself) liked to portray, but even after an abrupt wake-up call for the mechanic in which Loki had smiled and danced with his family, Tony hadn’t immediately disappeared into a haze of drink and unfamiliar bodies.

When confronted, and he had been thanks to the extended period he spent down in the labs with his cars and machines, Tony said that he was _fine_ , and then upped his security. It would take a lot of smashing, likely of a green variety, to get through his barriers now.

It had been two weeks without a peek from their unknown time-traveller and since then Clint had been on a SHIELD-ordered mission _and_ returned to his apartment building for a three-day visit. In all that time, Tony’s combined distance travelled amounted to exactly the same total square-feet of his garage floor. He slept there, he ate there, and presumably there was some sort of hidden bathroom since the only lingering smell was the faint, normally intoxicating aroma of Tony Stark’s confusion.

He didn’t know what was going on, but nor did anyone else. This count included Bruce, and if the combined mega-brain of Stark-‘N’-Banner didn’t know something then it was either non-existent, or it didn’t need to be known.

Unfortunately, against all the odds, there was surprisingly convincing evidence that something existed outside of the perceptions and understanding of them all, and for the time being – or at least until Loki got his act together and decided to give them some answers – they had to cope with the fact they could neither fight nor gather data on their mysterious tour-guide.

However, disconcerting though it was, Tony wasn’t the only one who was puzzling over the deeper mechanisms behind their realm-hopping. For his part, Clint was stuck on reassessing the likelihood that what they were experiencing may not be as real as they liked to assume.

Upon their first trip to Norway Natasha had rightfully pointed out that they had been the _cause_ of Loki’s demise and therefore it stood to be a more reasonable assumption that what they were experiencing was true, since they had posed as an effector upon the historically accurate account of Thor’s past. However, as the days wore on and they weren’t ripped from their lives and dumped into history, further contemplation was suggesting that perhaps it wasn’t as clear-cut as they had initially presumed.

It wasn’t impossible, as Clint was starting to remember, for Loki to assail them with an illusion – something much easier than time-travel and well-within his own not insubstantial capabilities – and who else would know enough intimate details of his life to convince even Thor that they had moved through his time-stream? He had consulted Natasha about this idea, and she had agreed quickly that it wasn’t outside of Loki’s creativity to develop a plot as complicated and confusing as this romp across the folds of ‘time’ to gather… what, exactly? Sympathy? Understanding? Adoration? He had even almost succeeded.

Luckily, as the team’s lengthy absence from time-hopping resulted in their feet remaining firmly on the ground of reality, Clint’s memory had refocused. Even now, months later, it was hard living in New York without reminders of Loki’s attempt at invasion. Though the citizens displayed a remarkable ability to stand up and move on – a survival mechanism seen in humanity at the worst of times – it wouldn’t forgive Loki his cruelty, nor his destruction. He had killed people, sliced through lives and families and homes, and there were too many people who would never recover from the torment he had put upon them. Clint, finally, was starting to remember that he was one of them.

Clint had tried to breach the subject with Tony, but Stark had only emerged once, a day after their return from Scandinavia and their early joyous not-quite Kwanzaa, with news over what had them still buzzing with energy. He had no real answers, as was turning into a trend, but he could tell them _why_ they felt like caffeine had replaced their blood.

Tony said, “We were drugged. I can’t even tell you _how_ drugged we were, there is hardly a measure. The only one who should be alive is Bruce.” He pointed at his fellow scientist at the same time Dr Banner questioningly turned his finger to himself.

Clint had replied, “Isn’t that dangerous for you? You’re not scared to fall off the wagon?”

“Is it _dig at Tony’s chequered past_ hour again?” Tony snapped.

“My favourite part of the day.”

Tony didn’t recognise that Clint’s ease in needling him displayed a level of comfort that not even Clint realised they shared.

And, considering this new-found bond, since Stark wasn’t coming out then Clint was forced to let himself in. Tony had passwords and ID checks and multiple alarms for intruders, but Clint and JARVIS had an agreement which was called, for the sake of posterity, ‘He May Be Clever But He’s Also A Member Of The Team’. It entailed granting Clint the right to gain access to Tony when his abrupt mood-swings or bouts of self-imposed isolation were causing waves amongst the rest of the Avengers. One for all, or something. JARVIS was more concerned for Tony’s mindset, because long periods alone to think gave him a lot of time to, well… _think_.

“Stark,” he announced himself, and Tony cursed and clattered behind a pile of parts. “Good morning to you too, potty mouth.” 

“Uh, JARVIS, how did he get in?”

“He has access permission, sir.”

“No, he doesn’t.”

“Yes, he does.” Clint corrected. “Family gets extenuating circumstances. You’ve been down here longer than it took me to get to Latveria and back. Strange place, Latveria. I wasn’t _technically_ allowed to be there. I think I broke some tentative peace treaty or something-“

“I stopped listening at the word ‘family’, which we are not. JARVIS, you and I are having words later about loyalty and nepotism. I am, spoiler alert, your father. I come first, buddy.”

“I am aware, sir.”

“By which he means that this is for your own good,” Clint translated, picking up an arrow Tony had spent a small amount of time absently tinkering with whilst he set his clever brain on the more intricate problem of time-travel with a break to contemplate the illusiveness of love. The archer twirled it a little, liking the weight. “What is this trick for then?”

“Why don’t you shoot Loki in the face with it next time we see him and find out?”

“Ooh, sore spot?”

“What do you want?” Tony scowled, whilst Clint shrugged.

“How are you feeling?”

“What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean.”

But Tony ignored him, turning back to his worktop and picking up a smelting iron which he stared at forlornly.

After a while, Clint got bored with playing with his new arrow and interjected: “Are you going to switch it on or keep on imagining pelting Loki around the head with it?”

Tony startled, surprised that the trained assassin could read him so easily. Clint wasn’t going to tell him that he’d cheated, because he was also taking an extortionate amount of pleasure from imagining his new arrow landing neatly in Loki’s beautiful iris.

“It’s the same for all of us, which you’d know if you came out for a cup of coffee every so often,” he finally admitted, and saw some tension escape Tony’s rigid frame. “I can physically feel any acceptance or forgiveness towards the bastard draining out of me.” He looked up to Tony carefully. “I guess it’s a bit harder for you.”

“What do you mean?”

Clint sniffed, shrugged, smiled, in that order. “I don’t really remember what feeling happy to see Loki was like, but being in love with him was probably more potent.”

“I wasn’t in love with him.”

And Clint believed it, for a moment. Because there was Pepper, and Tony was in love with her. They may not be together anymore, but never for an instant did either of them stop feeling.

The farce which had been the Stark-Potts breakup extravaganza involved a delayed panic attack after the AIM incident. It inflicted within Tony a sudden single-mindedness, a complete obsession and tunnel-vision allowing in only that which was hyper-relevant into his attentions. He had thought, even once they were all out of danger, that he had lost her completely, and the terror overrode his ability to function. PTSD had a funny way of manifesting, reoccurring at abrupt, inopportune moments, when things had finally started to settle. Tony had wound up becoming distant in an attempt to pretend that everything was business as usual, hiding the fact he had JARVIS tracking her movements and constantly counting her heart-rate. Pepper had been shocked and appalled upon discovering his newest past-time and recognised that separation was the first step in a complex healing process. She was still there for him, and they had agreed on a compromise regarding monitoring, but they also agreed to break off their more intimate connection in an attempt to keep each other safe and sane.

They loved each other, hopelessly; Tony going giddy in the face when he thought about her or knew he was going to see her or when he spoke her name, but they knew that, for now at least, this was for the better.

But then there was Loki. And maybe Tony didn’t love Loki now, but for a time he had been exactly as he was for Pepper, and none of his friends had misinterpreted it. They were all in accordance, and so were doubly worried for their teammate. But he seemed fine, if a little grumpy and frustrated. He wasn’t binging, he wasn’t being too reckless, and he hadn’t destroyed anything in a fit of anger, so maybe he was alright. Maybe love didn’t leave a mark when it was gone.

Maybe he hadn’t been in love at all.

“Just something new to think about,” Clint said. “We seem to all experience strange emotions around Loki that otherwise we would not be feeling. Also, you know, maybe all of this is Loki’s design.”

“I’ve considered that.” Tony said absently, but was staring at the smelting iron again and Clint decided that it was about time to beat a hasty retreat before the inventor started imagining some imaginative ways of using the instrument on a new target.

“Well, have fun. Lasagne tonight, if you feel like socialising. Mama Steve’s famous recipe.” But Tony didn’t hear him, lost in yet another contemplation to add to the generous amounts of puzzling, irritating questions. Clint made sure to keep the door unlocked when he left.

\--

“Where are we?” Clint asked softly into the dark, deserted corridors, crouching automatically to keep himself small. Natasha copied, keeping her volume low and her body lower. The only ones who didn’t follow the assassins’ lead were Stark – who had enough protection to keep him safe from a charging rhinoceros on the back of a livid elephant – and Thor. The god stepped forward, touching the walls with an uneasy familiarity.

“We’re in Asgard,” he reported, though his voice was carefully muted. Clint assumed that meant they had landed somewhere they were not meant to be. Thor confirmed: “These are the prison vaults.”

“Cool,” Tony replied, the first time most of them had seen him out of his lab for the last three weeks. He opened his faceplate to regulate his own volume in tandem with the rest of the group who were starting to move. “The better question, as is always with time travel, is _when_ are we? Will a good look at the prisoners help, or do you just throw people in here and toss away the key? Forget about them for a few centuries?”

“We rarely keep anyone indefinitely. Few have ever been subjected to such a punishment. My brother was, but only after our mother pleaded for his life. Father’s punishment would have been much swifter and decisive.”

“That must have stung,” Clint said, tone only light because he was trying to keep quiet. They knew where they were, at least, but that didn’t mean that hostiles weren’t everywhere and anywhere. Now they had a hypothesis that those will magic could observe and easily interact with them, landing on Earth would have been infinitely more relaxing than appearing on Asgard, where magicians were more likely to be lurking.

“What?” Thor asked, aware of the expression but not liking Clint’s implications.

“Being saved by your mum, I mean. She’s not his mum, is she? So, it must have aggravated him that all this angst he’s been going through has been nullified by a mother’s love.”

“Loki never denounced her.” Thor admitted, sounding raw with the memory. “Loki was affected greatly when he learned of her death.”

“Yeah, about that,” Tony inserted. “You never told us what happened-“

He was interrupted by a guard passing by, steps sharp as he made his way down the long corridor in which prisoners were held behind golden shields. Magic and ethereal, they were beautiful curves, designs befitting the palace, but vicious when one came too close. A touch seemed to burn, keeping the dangerous looking men and women trapped behind its cursed container.

“Come,” Thor said. The Avengers followed wordlessly, watching as his eyes saddened at the few, unseeing prisoners they passed. It wasn’t the people which made him sad, but likely something more. Perhaps a memory of his brother; a prince debased and dreadful deserving only of a fiery cage and criminals for company.

As they neared the end of the long stretch Thor held a hand out to stop them, glancing to his teammates with terrible, large blue eyes.

“You know when we are, big man?” Clint asked softly.

Thor indicated silence as he watched a guard emerge and step close to a cage and spoke to the prisoner inside it, but their angle did not allow any of the team to see whom was being addressed. This, it seemed, was by Thor’s clever design, and thus gave way to an answer.

The blond said, “When I spoke of my mother’s death, it was because it came so quickly to mind. The situation where I was down here last was almost immediately after her funeral. That would be because the only time my brother spent any extended or important period down here was…”

“After he attacked New York.” Steve finished.

“He was trapped in here when she died. He was told after the wake. We couldn’t let him out for it, and nor did we know what he’d do.”

The Avengers stepped closer as the guard took his leave, watching as Loki, appearing prim and proper and not at all likened to the other prisoners, stood from his seat and turned away from the magical barrier keeping him from freedom. The magician missed their stepping out of the shadows as he stood straight and glared into his furnished cell, suddenly clenching his outstretched fists and making his magic grow, flinging objects from side to side.

To Clint, it seemed childish, but he had lost his parents so long ago. He had loved them, but he had barely known them. He realised how long Frigga and Loki existed together, lived as mother and son, that she had been the one to stay the axe intent for Loki’s execution as it swung. The archer wished he couldn’t empathise, but for a moment he did. 

As the moment stretched on, they noticed Loki shiver. This wasn’t an abrupt outburst, fuelled by the pain of loss, but rather represented the searing agony of a creature which had been suddenly deprived of his last crutch; of only thing in the universe that mattered anymore. The Avengers couldn’t see his face and nor he theirs as they moved backwards, to hide themselves from him lest they further break the already crumbling man. Loki twisted his body back towards the golden walls, and there came a moment no one in the universe was supposed to see.

The few prisoners watched on with obvious interest, boredom alleviated for the time, and the Avengers couldn’t bring themselves to look away either, personal though the situation should have been.

Loki snarled, magically smashing at his surroundings as if to put the Hulk to shame, pausing for a long moment to heave out a breath, only to touch his clothes and study them, ripping at them within the next breath with the same fury which had accentuated his destruction.

He tugged and pulled, at his skin and his hair, at the clothes on his back. He set the outermost garments alight, burning them along with the few books within reach, and after that abandoning magic and allowing every action to be physical. He broke and kicked and yelled, ripped at his hair; collapsing, eventually, on the far side of his little trap, staring at all the chaos he had wreaked.

Clint’s gut twisted and he put a hand over his mouth to stop from cursing, because it would take a man much stronger than him not to be moved by the dramatic display of heart-break.

Even if he had stood strong before, what came next would have broken his resolve.

Loki waved his hand, fingers caressing the air, suddenly light and gentle. The visage of a beautiful woman in blue appeared, looking down at him with an expression of furrowed brows and disappointment. He watched her for a while in silence, until he allowed his hand to drop and with it went the image his mother, dissolving in a haze of gold and green.

Loki screamed.

Curling around the cage and bursting outward, the noise startled the other convicts who stood even at the opposite end of the prison. They strained to look down the hall, tittering at the edge of each golden barrier, stopping just short of pressing their noses up against it to catch sight of the commotion. Very few of them were privy to watching Loki fall to pieces.

His breath quickly failed, though to those watching him in the shadows, to the few mortals who had come to know him better recently and had, dare Clint say it, once or twice even come to _care_ about him, it had lasted a lifetime. They had seen Loki in desperate situations before, believing he was going to die, happy when he hadn’t, unable to know when he had. But they had never seen him like this.

He deflated, the air expelled from his lungs, stolen by his grief and anger, and collapsed against the wall behind him.

He looked old, and very small.

The last time they had seen him, Yule, fifteen hundred years and only a few weeks ago, he had been happy and high, flushed and in love and singing. He had been surrounded by friends and family on an especially holy day, and they had all been drunk with joy and gleeful with celebration. The Avengers had been charged with good fortune from the sorcerer himself, who had made them sing alongside him. How times had changed.

Now he sat, a broken man, flat up against the wall, bleeding from his own carelessness and rage, torn apart by his own mistakes and losses. What was another death to him? Too much, too many.

And Clint felt it again, the undeniable pull of sympathy, and he couldn’t help his heart start to ache for the wreck of a god who was left bleeding and bruised on the floor of his prison cell.

Thor stepped out of the shadows slowly and Loki’s look was a dagger, his eyes burning where before they had been defeated. He scowled at his brother as the blond remained quiet, too surprised and strained for words, until the green-eyed villain’s attention was torn from him by the slow emergence of the rest of the heroes. It took him only that second to distinguish between this Thor and that of his present.

His eyes settled again on his brother and he said, as had become a mantra with him, the typical response to any of their visits: “You.”

“Loki-“

“Are we at this time again? Once, I might have looked forward to these moments, but now I would wish you gone.”

Tony stepped forward, eyes wide but any readable emotion muddled by a ruthless array of others, put on display simultaneously, making him impossible to read; a defence mechanism which was almost as good as the magical illusion which Loki replied with. The air shimmered, their perceptions shifted, and it was as if his outburst had never happened. The god was smiling at the inventor, hair righted and clothes unburnt, face a picture of mischief and deceit.

“Have you come to kill me, Stark?” His voice was a mockery of the wisp he had spoken with only seconds before, slow and low and steady. The illusion stuttered away when Tony tried to reach out.

Despite his best attempts, despite the words in his lab, the rage in place of affection, Tony’s emotions were stormy and electrified, confusing and turbulent, and he was falling in love again.

Loki stared at him from the floor as the sharp golden designs rejected Tony’s touch, pushing his gauntlet away with aplomb. When he failed, when the inventor took a step away, Loki turned his head to the floor.

“This is all I have to give.” The disgraced god said. “The legacy of Loki Laufeyson – a broken chair and the tricks of a dead woman.”

“Loki,” Tony said, but was interrupted.

“What does my name mean to you, Stark? The god of chaos and fire? The harbinger? The liesmith?”

“Idiot?” Tony offered sharply, drawing Loki’s eyes back to his face. There was a faintly intrigued expression, but it was blotted out by pain. More apathetic than he was interested, it was politeness and nothing more that kept Loki’s head turned Tony’s way.

The Iron Man continued, “You’re blaming yourself for something you didn’t cause. Don’t interrupt me, you _are_. I know that look, Loki. Hell, I’ve felt it. Did you murder her? What happened?”

Thor said, “She was stabbed by one of the Kursed.”

“Are you the Kursed that stabbed her?” Tony asked, whilst Loki still watched him with that careful, guarded expression. “No, you’re not. You’ve done plenty which you can blame yourself for, but this isn’t one of them. Are you listening to me?”

Loki’s reaction to this outburst was slow, but it was potent. He turned his head, mouth smiling before his laughter came, the look on his face more a parody of humour than any real expression if it.

“What do you propose I do then, Tony, if not wallow alone in my prison cell?”

“You must wait,” Thor said solidly, stepping forward to stand by his companion. Quickly the other Avengers stepped up, posing not only by the side of Thor and Tony, but also, in spirit, beside where Loki sat as well.

The trickster watched them all very carefully. He frowned, he assessed them, and he said: “You know me now?”

“We know you, Loki.”

The god nodded, accepting these words, and watched them as they moved towards the exit upon Thor’s urging. “I’ll see you soon, I expect.”

“You’ll certainly see me,” His brother acknowledged, lingering for a long moment to stare back at his sibling with a very slow, deliberate gaze.

“What is it?” Loki hazarded, wary and alert for any danger, glancing around to the outside of the prison corridors before realising that Thor’s eyes were unwaveringly focused on him. The gap between his eyebrows was marred by the crease of his expression, and the Avengers had to pull Thor away before Loki started thinking with that brilliant brain or began jumping to frighteningly accurate conclusions.

“Tony,” he called out, voice suddenly soft rather than any attempt at strength, and the inventor could hardly resist such a call. He turned back just as they had started to ascend the steps leading the way out, glancing back to the slump form of the man who would have destroyed New York. It was funny, but although they could never truly forgive him for it, they were once again starting to forget the shape of the man who had done it. Clint was trying to clutch to his righteous fury, but once again it fled like smoke.

“I don’t know where you are or what you’ve seen of my life,” he said to the mortal in the metal suit. “Nor do I know how much left you have to see.”

Ah, shit. There went the hope that Loki wouldn’t figure out the shape of the future he had yet to live, their pain and expressions too bare to ignore.

Tony and Loki shared a long, silent moment of eye contact, before Tony raised a hand and almost pressed his palm against the golden light again. He stopped himself just in time, remembering the repercussions of his last attempt, but didn’t immediately withdraw.

Whilst Loki didn’t return the gesture, he smiled instead. It was almost as good as a goodbye.

The Avengers finally turned away from the dishevelled villain, starting the climb which would lead them out of the prison cell up into the lighter corridors of the palace, only to emerge from the darkness and take three steps into a dusty, howling landscape; another new realm for them to get lost in.

What was presented to them was the remains of a battle with dead, dark alien ships that looked like they had fallen straight out of a Sci-Fi sky which could be spotted littering the distant dunes.

“We’re in Svartlfarheim once more,” Thor informed them primly – or was it grimly? – setting off towards the darkening horizon.

“This place again?” Clint scowled. “No dwarves this time, alright?”

Thor huffed, a brief expression of amusement rather than irritation, and inclined his head. “No dwarves,” he swore.

He led them, as usual, and they stopped when he did. The team were in time to catch the tail-end of Loki flipping a slip of a knife, twirling and stabbing straight into the necks of his enemies; downing five in the time it took the other Thor, off in the distance, to escape the punches of one, admittedly bigger, nemesis.

The God of Mischief fought in the shadow of an impossibly upright spaceship. It was the same monstrosity which Clint had been sent to investigate in London, and from it spilled the same aliens which had been filmed terrorising Greenwich.

The god stood over the petite body of Dr Foster, who was torn between both battles, worried for her boyfriend as well as terrified of the more immediate situation unfolding in front of her. Loki was effective and efficient, and though he could fight comfortably with a spear (as the Avengers had found out the hard way), he was so much more at ease with a blade between his fingers.

Tony was quickly by his side, but raised his faceplate when he realised that Loki was in no need of his assistance since all hostiles were now dead or well on their way to being it. Loki grinned up at him madly. “Too late for the party, huh?”

Loki next expression was strange, pulling some sort of faint expression. On anyone else, it might have been a smile. It was clear, though it was not unusual to see in Loki’s face, that he knew something they did not.

 “Do not worry so, brother!” He then exclaimed as Thor landed heavily beside him, eyes wide with panic. “I’ll save you.” He pointed into the distance, where his present Thor was getting his face pummelled. Their Thor, however, was in the middle of a charge, and Loki was laughing whilst his illusion was cut through by his brother’s tackle. He had teleported away, leaving behind a blinking remain which twitched out of existence.

Thor made a noise, part-way between a roar and a sob, and Steve had to grip him by the arms to keep him from rushing ahead.

“We must go!” Thor pushed at the super-soldier as easily as Loki had cut down his opponents, and the Avengers were running after Jane Foster who could neither see nor hear them. She was heading towards the last fight scene on the wasteland, where Loki had stabbed a giant alien through the gut.

In his attempted to save his brother, Loki had made a grave miscalculation.

Perhaps if they had been a bit quicker, Clint later considered, they might have been able to do something. As it was, the beast was vanquished but the conqueror was fatally wounded. He was dead by the time they reached the bottom of the dune.

When they reached him, the heroes were faced with a body and the flicker of red as the corpse’s present-brother was dragged away by Dr Foster. Around them the wind howled, the skies darkening with anger as Thor dropped down where his past-self had been forced to vacate, taking the limp body of his brother into his arms.

Tony, hidden behind a face plate, was snapping at JARVIS to scan Loki and check for signs of life. The Avengers gathered around the curiously cracking carcass, watching with growing distress how he began to grow unrecognisable under the darkening skin, burning away by the touch of an unseen flame.

Tony fell silent when JARVIS could only offer bad news, whilst Thor grazed a hand over the oozing wound which had punctured Loki straight through. Clint remembered their first visit to Norway, which seemed a long time ago, that had given them an image much like their now-reality. Loki lay dead in both scenes, but this time there were emotions in the way that were more than just a vague concern that Thor was going to thwack Clint with his mighty hammer the moment they were alone.

After their first time-travel experience, when Tony and Bruce and Natasha had grilled the god for more details as to why people could return from the dead, Thor explained that the body had to be intact, or at least capable of functioning, for the soul to return to it.

Loki’s body, slowly destroying itself through rapid decay and with the stench of burning flesh to narrate it, was certainly not habitable anymore. It was not surprising that Thor had been persuaded to leave him here. If there had been a glimmer of hope that Loki could be returned, he would have taken it. As it was, Loki was a lost cause.

Clint was starting to finally recognise why Thor had so avidly claimed that his brother was now officially dead, and was once again re-recalculating the rapidly dwindling probability that their displacements in time were all the doings of the dastardly Loki.

They sat there for a time, allowing the storm to pelt at them, but it was quickly diverted by Thor’s power. He protected his brother, even now, even as Loki blackened and that familiar visage disappeared under distorted skin. All the while Tony remained behind his mask.

They eventually found themselves in the darkness of Stark tower again, the living-room camp-site a permanent feature of Stark Tower in these recent weeks, and they were silent as their eyes adjusted to the darkness.

The return was a long time coming. Clint wished they hadn’t been abandoned for so many hours on that distant realm. He felt hollow, so clutched on tightly to Natasha hoping the contact and presence of the woman he loved would be enough to fill him back up.

“I didn’t believe her,” Clint admitted into the silence of the night. Five pairs of eyes turned to look at him, and Thor’s was the brightest of all those saddened, disheartened gazes. “Dr Foster, I mean. She told me Loki had protected her, but I didn’t believe he had it in him.”

“He wouldn’t have done it if not for me,” Thor knew this with a conviction that made the other Avengers humble in the face the brotherly affection that Thor and Loki so obviously endured down to the very marrow of their bones. As with their mother, the brothers had shared an amount of time together that was immeasurable to any of the Avengers, who even with their tricks and gadgets and ways of cheating death, were still only mortals with another seventy years left in them, or less. The gods loved had each other so deeply, so intensely, for so long, that it could so easily be misconstrued, by themselves or by any ignorant outside observer, as hatred.

“Why were we taken there?” Tony asked wretchedly, but no one had an immediate answer for him.

Steve said, as sadly as the rest of them, “He was so sad.”

When Loki was in the cell, Clint had experienced a frightfully impulsive moment to shoot his arrow against the cage, but not with the intent to release Loki. It had been to see whether the explosion would kill him. The thought wasn’t malevolent, and Clint was once again able to say that he wasn’t capable of much malice towards Loki anymore. Though there had been a vicious period between Yule and the present, he recalled it now with distaste. He didn’t understand from where his own anger had once again re-emerged, especially after the seasonal celebration they had been invited to. He’d never seen Loki as joyful as he had been back then.

And suddenly he realised why they were being shown such stark contrasts. The trip to meet the Lokisons hadn’t been to completely crush Tony’s developing feelings before they got out of hand (because if it was, then the plan had flopped at the first hurdle), but rather to show how much Loki had fallen from grace.

Clint shared this revelation with everyone, carefully staring at his and Natasha’s intertwined hands rather than meeting the eyes of the trickster god’s brother, nor the man who loved him.

He said: “Perhaps to show that it was inevitable. Loki dies, and for what? He has only experienced suffering and pain.”

“He was happy. With Angrboða and his children-” Tony started, but was stopped by the soft touch of his best friend.

Bruce said, “Have we seen him that content since? Before, sure, but after?”

The six of them all had to admit that they realised the only experiences of Loki post-Angrboða had been negative. They didn’t know what to say.

In the end, they realised that their ongoing mission now was not to dwell on what they had seen or experienced, but to share their mourning and to resist the urge to inform any future meet with Loki that not only was he going to die, and he was never going to be happy again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey do you remember that scene in Thor 2 where they’re in Svartlfheim and Jane’s asleep and Loki’s talking about how Thor will never be prepared to lose her? I do. Does it sound like its coming from experience? Up for debate, but for the purposes of future chapters I’d like you all to keep it in mind. =D


	10. 6 - Midgard

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OMG guys data collecting for my dissertation *screams in agony* MUCH DIFFICULT. Which is why I’m fretting instead of writing. So sorry!

They didn’t even need Thor to tell them this time, because it was clearly the same town, the same forest, and they were growing far too familiar with these particular trees. They were in a different part of the year than last they were here – thankfully, a much warmer season – but none the less, they were in Scandinavia some one thousand and five hundred years ago.

They hadn’t even walked far, hardly a mile in the general direction of Loki’s Norwegian home to see whether the god still lived there with his family, before they came across him sitting by a small creek. His hair wasn’t shorn, and his eyes weren’t that same calm content which they remembered so clearly from their last visit. Nor were they the drifting madness of the man they had seen die on Svartlfarheim.

He seemed to be was a man prior to any of those circumstances, absently washing his face and refreshing his mouth with the water drifting down the gentle decline of the landscape.

“Loki?” Thor called, disturbing the peace, and the boy (and he _was_ a boy, fresh-faced and young) turned to greet them with a bright and wonderful smile.

“Oh, Thor! Future Thor, in fact, and all his company. I haven’t seen you for many years.”

“Since Sleipnir?” Captain America guessed, and Loki nodded agreeably, cupping his hands around some water and taking a long drink. “At least we can rule out where we’ve been even if we can’t judge where we’re going next.”

“Not between spider horse and now,” Tony said pointedly. He smiled weakly in Loki’s direction. “It’s good to see you, actually.”

Loki smirked, straightening his clothes and brushing them down for any stray foliage which clung to the leather. “You make it sound like a surprise. Do you not enjoy my company, Stark?”

“Your company tends to involve a near-death experience, whether that be mine or yours or someone else’s.”

“Is that the result my company, or is it yours?”  Loki’s unimpressed expression was cutting – a raised eyebrow and a thin-lipped look of faintly, pathetically, concealed amusement.  “I’ve actually died one of those times. Have you?”

This stumped Tony at least, though he twitched hard and tried not to correct Loki’s statistics to _three_ , _you’ve died three times and I’ve been there for all of them_. He had to remind himself that he wasn’t allowed to mention that, because that’d screw Loki’s already paranoid life-view over even more. No one needed Loki twice as messed up in the head just because Tony couldn’t keep his emotions to himself.

“You threw me out a window.” He said instead, because if he wasn’t allowed to _correct_ Loki, then he was going to do his damn hardest to one-up him. Loki, however, immediately had a comeback.

“Really? Well, I’ll be sure to remember that for when it inevitably happened in the future.” He smirked at Tony’s glare. “I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, Stark, but you just sealed your own fate.”

“Yeah, that was _very_ clever, Tony,” Clint snorted, whilst Bruce frowned, muttering something about destiny and fate and free will and determinism. He should start to carry notepad with him to log all this down, to make his life a little bit easier.

“Whoops.” Tony admitted, and smoothly turned the conversation back to the present, where Loki knelt at the water’s edge and smiled gaily up at them, enjoying the inventor’s huffed attempts at distracting him. “Alright, so what’s the damage? Can’t very well help or hinder unless we know what we’re up against.” It was sensible to be a little wary, but judging by the look on Loki’s face, nothing terrible had happened. Yet. Tony amended, “So we’re good for now?”

The god nodded, shrugging blithely as if he wasn’t the kind to stumble into trouble accidentally-on-purpose each time he stepped outside his room. “I was just headed into the village. Would you care to join me?”

“What’s in the village?” Steve asked, and again Loki opened his hands.

“I’ve never been here before.”

Pre-Angrboða, pre-children, they found themselves standing at the period of his life where Loki was as gentle and undamaged as he could ever be. It didn’t make him innocent, his smirk was too sly and his gaze too clever for that, but it made him normal. No worse than any Avenger. Perhaps even better than some.

They made their way back in the direction the Avengers had come, and the super-heroes, including Thor, quizzed Loki on what had happened since they’d last seen one another. Loki, it seemed, lived a fairly quiet life on Asgard – training with his brother and the Warriors Three and Sif – though he faltered slightly at this point, glancing quickly to Thor who narrowed his eyes and cast his mind back.

He realised quickly what Loki was trying to indicate with a particularly long look, but kept his mouth shut.

The others attempted to grill both gods about the details of whatever they weren’t sharing, but received stern silences from the brothers as they walked. It was a little strange, actually, since both of them revelled in the chance to share a story, whether it be an epic tale (Thor) or a winding mystery, riddled with lies and, surprisingly, jokes (Loki). The Avengers had heard many stories from Thor over the course of their companionship, and their only experience of Loki’s story telling abilities rose from the day they spent together celebrating the Winter Solstice. However, the god proved to be almost as good as his brother, if not better, at consuming his audience in colourful worlds and exploits from days gone past. Wordsmith came hand in hand with the whole God of Lies business.

It was likely that, if sat amongst friends in the modern day, Loki could put a positive spin on even the most horrific of his own bibliographical tales. Not that they would ever get a chance to ask him to recount anything, or even would. Although they had seen him caged in Asgard, watched him fight in Svartlfarheim, Clint had experienced both empathy and revulsion in the same breath. This Loki, walking alongside them through the remote wilderness of Scandinavia, was a far-sight from a liar who lived broken with only himself and the truth. In his cage he was more recognisable as the villain who had decimated New York, even though he had looked so vastly different without the intimidation tactics. Tony may feel something profound towards the god, but even he had been hesitant to reach out and touch when he’d had the chance.

Tony didn’t show the same restraint here. He was buzzing around Loki, flanking his side whilst Thor strode on Loki’s right, questions coming in as fast as Loki could answer them. It took a sharp eye to notice the underlying desperation which etched lines across Iron Man’s face.

This was the problem: the heroes had, in between Svartlfarheim and now, collectively accepted that Loki’s death was final. That meant that they had to mourn, and to somehow figure out how to treat the Loki they strolled with now as something other than a walking corpse.

In honesty, many of their numbers were using it as a chance to spend that last bit of time with him whilst he was still alive and happy and pointedly _not dead_ , before they were once and for all returned to a present where Loki no longer existed. This was an understandable motive in Thor, who wished to stretch out the time spent with his brother, but for the rest of them their eagerness should have been more of an enigma. Unfortunately, extended contact and the surprising group empathy had started to take its toll on them all, and they were even beginning to consider Loki (this one at least) something of a friend.

Tony, having dived a bit deeper than the rest, was attempting to make good use of the gift (or potential curse) of extra time by staring at Loki for long periods when the god was looking the other way.

As they headed towards town, the bustle of human life began to become more prominent. People lived and breathed around them, not noticing as they passed through the little village. Loki too was hidden from view, surrounded by the unseen Avengers. Whatever magic was keeping the people away from the heroes was also encouraging wondering eyes to skim over the God of Mischief as well.

Not one to overlook an opportunity, Loki was only being held back from causing mayhem by stern looks from his older brother. Several times already across the small but chaotic market, Thor had to physically pull his brother backwards when his grin began to creep too wide.

“Don’t,” Thor warned, when it looked like magic was soon to make an appearance. Loki wouldn’t have listened, had it not been for the steely tone which was rarely heard in Thor’s jovial voice. He was normally happy to allow his brother to make harmless pranks, but there was something about this village which was cause for concern. Clint couldn’t see anything dangerous about it, and the whole place could do with a bit of mischievous brightening up, but Thor was their expert in the days long past and even Loki nodded his compliance.

They perused the community with great fascination, moving slowly from stall to stall. Unnerved by Thor’s warning, Loki had pulled his hood over his head just in case, face shadowed by the cloak, and then continued on amid the invisible Avengers. He remained mostly overlooked, only a few more shrewd of humans managing to fix their eyes in his direction, calling out to him in a distant language. Loki would reply in the All-Speak, mindful of his companions, allowing them to hear his dismissive words as the native would.

They were stopped by a crowd, gathering only a few stalls over, growing around a pair of arguing women who snarled at each other in that same foreign tongue. Whilst they could not understand either of their words, they did not misunderstand the sudden shift from headed tones to outright violence. It was the dark-haired woman who leapt towards the blonde, and Loki looked about ready to jump in between them like a god-damn _hero_ , when he was stopped by the sight of the blonde raising her arms, and beneath her sleeves emerged a painted web of intricate ink, stretching from the tips of her fingers to the base of her neck.

“Is that-?” Thor started, glancing to his brother with a wary eye. Loki nodded in return, struck speechless, though the others of their group were unsure as to what was so shocking.

“What, tattoos not a thing in Viking society? I thought it was a thing.” Clint asked the two surprised men, who blinked at his disturbance, before shaking their heads.

“It’s not her tattoos, but what they represent.” Loki answered.

“What do they represent?”

But Clint very quickly received his answer, watching at the magic, golden and glaring, grew from the edges of the designs etched into the woman’s arms, shooting quickly towards her attacker, freezing her limbs and trapping her in place. Where before only a few onlookers were staring at the public disturbance, the gasps and surprised outcries drew quick attention of the entire village her way. With the shock, so too came outrage.

Loki hissed a vicious sounding word under his breath, starting forward through the crowd alongside his brother. The Avengers quickly came after, recognising when a situation was starting to become dangerous and the people hostile.

Loki grabbed the hand of a burly man who had started to intervene before him, clenching his fingers down on the human’s wrist until he let the blonde woman loose from his own substantial grasp. She began to back away, crashing immediately into Thor who loomed behind her. Loki lashed out to take the top of her arm in his free hand, and with the dropping of her hands followed the work of gravity on her sleeves, once again obscuring her impressive inks. What was left over, peaking out as the tattoos ebbed onto the back of her hands, dimmed as the magic diminished and the other woman was let free of the frozen state she had been locked inside.

“Do not leave,” Loki hissed at the woman with a stern glare, and her brief bout of struggling stopped under his authoritative, regal tone. It was a voice more suited to be practiced in diplomacy, between stubborn men and women of equal standing, butting heads over a trivial matter which could, if the meet was handled inappropriately, quickly spiral out of control. It was a shame Loki was so enamoured with mischief and chaos, else he might indeed have made a capable leader.

Here was certainly a tense situation he had to defuse. Whilst Clint knew that Vikings believed in magic – they had to, seeing as two of their Gods were standing right in front of them and both were infused with their own different flavours of seiðr – that didn’t mean it was not a taboo in everyday society. It was something that, perhaps, was only acceptable in rituals or pro-social circumstances. Otherwise it was met and treated with deep suspicion.

And, as Thor had put a stop to Loki’s own use of his tricks in public, there was something deeper lingering in this particular place that did not seem to bond well with any displays of power.

By the look on the burly Viking’s face and the sharp tone of his voice as he spoke, he was probably enquiring after Loki’s relationship towards the blonde stranger.

“My student,” Loki nodded quickly, lies leaving his mouth as if butter wouldn’t melt. He sounded appropriately irate, and as if he were willing to take responsibility for this stranger’s mishaps; as if they really did share a close personal relationship of mentor and student. “I have told her repeatedly to keep herself to herself in town.”

“ _Me_?” The woman screeched, and Clint suddenly realised why he recognised her. She was younger, smaller, but she was most definitely Angrboða, fiery and disapproving. Her personality did not need to be expressed in only words, as her blistering determination and contrariness had glowed like electricity across the sky when they had met before. It was no different now. A furious glare and a stern word was enough to show how impossible she would be to thwart if her mind was set, and her mind was certainly set that she was not in the wrong. Loki seemed to have a different idea.

“Yes, you.” He replied sternly.

Angrboða, however, was unwilling to have the blame laid her way. The passion of which she addressed Loki certainly laid some weight to the lie he was feeding their audience about being a student at odds with their instructor. “I am not at fault!”

And his acting ability almost made Clint a believer. “That does not excuse it.”

“She attacked _me_ ,” Angrboða reminded them, pointing at the snarling woman.

“What were you even arguing about?”

“I-“ Angrboða stopped, and Loki narrowed her eyes at her.

“How can I assist you if you will not even tell me what I’m defending?” Loki whispered, glanced to his brother as if looking for a loan of his strength.

Instead of offering any muscle or conviction, the blond said, “Her name is Angroða,” knowing that such knowledge would help Loki only give credit to his lies whilst the humans remained oblivious to the presence of the Avengers. Angrboða, however, if Tony’s hypothesis was correct (as the evidence was starting to suggest), was become more and more aware of the company. She heard Thor’s voice and almost turned towards him, forced to remain still only when Loki refused to let up his hold of her arm.

“Angrboða,” he insisted, staring at her imploringly. “Help me.”

“For what reason would I help you?” She said, softer but no less suspicious. She had switched to a different language of the natives, as the Vikings began to frown severely, barking at them in their own language to keep the crowd included. The two magicians ignored them.

“Because I am trying to help _you_ , you insolent-“ Loki took a breath. “I would help, if you would just allow me to do so.”

Angrboða scowled at him, but he squeezed his hand tightly and glanced pointedly at the crowd they were keeping company.

He snapped, “Do you really want to cause more of a scene that what you have already done unto yourself?”

Angrboða calmed enough to consider this, eventually nodding once and glaring at the crowd which were now glaring at the magical duo. Nonetheless, she did not appear more friendly towards Loki as he stretched out his hand towards their audience, gesturing his head at Angroboða whilst she fumed at him. Pursing her lips, her face was a mask of defiance even as she apologised under his stern instruction.

The man who had confronted Loki brandished his weapon at the god’s throat, clearly unaware of who he was threatening. He said something offensive, violent, and under any other circumstances the Avengers would have expected to see mortal blood splash across the muddy ground. Instead, Loki kept his head upright, keeping his hold on the young woman steady until the humans had begun to disperse.

Loki turned on his heel, hand still tight around Angrboða’s arm, face shadowed under the hood but no less terrifying for the gleam of teeth against the darkened backdrop. The woman didn’t seem intimidated, but she had also been distracted from her scary-looking saviour by the colourful array of companions she had suddenly acquired.

“What strange creatures is it that follow us, man?” She demanded to know, but Loki didn’t answer until they were safely hidden deep within the foliage of the green trees. He whipped down is hood, revealing his thin face, and they both spent a moment suddenly stunned, looking at and studying one another properly for the first time. Despite their fury towards one another, there was an immediate and electrical reaction. Perhaps it was magic clashing, finding a brother amid the silent background of magicless Midgard, but whatever it was proved potent. Worse than that, Clint considered, it was destined to end in marriage and children. It was the precursor for the two ignorant idiots falling in love.

Clint grimaced. He had just seen a fatal attraction spark to life, hidden beneath a mask of contempt and frustration. It was all going to turn to hell quickly.

He looked to Tony, face behind the Iron Man mask, carefully hidden either by design or mere coincidence. Clint wasn’t the only one concerned about the feelings of his companion, but no one was going to speak up to address it when Loki was _right there_ making goo-goo eyes at a powerful magician.

Angrboða was the first to snap back to the present, to break free and shout, pointing a finger and then waving it in the direction of the Avengers. She said, “What is happening here? These are aliens unlike that which I have ever seen.”

“From which realm do you herald?” Loki returned, glaring at her suspiciously, nose crinkling in distaste. “You are obviously not of Midgard.”

“Obviously.” She said, tugging at her sleeves self-consciously. His eyes lingered in turn, before proposing a deal – silver tongued as ever, no matter what his age, Loki knew the best way of getting what he wanted.

“An answer for an answer,” he suggested, gesturing to his six awkwardly observing not-friends, before carding that hand in a sweeping motion about her entirety as well. “I’ll tell you what these are when you confirm to me your identity.”

“You know my name, somehow. What more do you wish?”

“Only your background, madam.”

“And what about you? Do you possess a title?”

“Several,” Loki admitted. “And I will part with them when you likewise loosen your tongue.”

“Christ, we’ve really cracked open the Shakespeare, haven’t we?” Clint said to no one, and Tony snorted whilst Bruce smiled. The others, as they were well practised in doing, completely ignored him and his tone-lightening words. Loki seemed to have learned that rapidly as well, though Angrboða was a bit behind on the lesson. She scowled suspiciously his way, and Clint shrugged when she met his eyes.

“Fine,” she agreed, after a long minute of observing Clint’s snide smirk and Cap’s bright uniform and Tony’s glowing armour, clearly having made up her mind on the basis of idle curiosity turned morbid. “For each question you ask, I return one.”

“For each answer you give, I will pay you with my own.” Loki agreed, clearly setting the terms. Questions could be asked and ignored, but that meant answering queries would in turn be jeopardised. Clint could easily see this spiralling out of hand and ending in debt. Loki was never good at keeping things calm. Speaking of which, Loki was the one to set off their potentially dangerous game of twenty questions. “Firstly, what caused the ruckus in the marketplace?”

“A barter turned sour,” Angrboða admitted. “She would not accept my price.”

“So she attacked you?” Captain America couldn’t help but insert, earning him a vicious, twisted look from Loki who didn’t want to fall behind on their question count so early into the proceedings. Angrboða looked to the man, before denying his claim, shaking her head.

“I threatened her. And her family.” she admitted, then turning straight to Loki. “If we’re being truthful.”

“I would recommend it,” he returned lowly, dangerously. “What is your first question?”

Predictably, she asked: “Why is there a creature made of metal?”

“He is a human in a welded suit. My turn: Where are you from?”

“Álfheim.”

“I thought we were being truthful,” Loki tutted, smile creeping up the side of his face at the ease of which he had caught her lie. More so, however, that she had tried in the first place. “Try again, lady.”

Angrboða took a breath, before admitting: “Niflheim.” It seemed as though she had expected some great form of shock or surprise, a certain amount of backlash at least, so stared around her new company, bewildered, when she received no reaction at all.

Loki, when she turned back to him, had poison eyes which glimmered with intrigue. She didn’t like the way he stared at her, and nor did Clint if they were still playing the honesty game. She scowled and started pushing him away when he leaned too close out of scientific, magical, or perhaps deadly interest. “Stay back.”

“You are of _Niflheim_ ,” he repeated, as though it was a revelation to him and he hadn’t figured it out as soon as he had spotted her. It was something to do with her tattoos, that much was obvious, from the way Loki stopped and stared when he spied her, to the manner in which she now clutched at her hand, as if attempting to hide it even after she had told the truth.

“There is magic in you. Oh, such power,” he said, practically sniffing her for how heavily he breathed in the air surrounding the woman as he circled her form like a hungry vulture. Clint didn’t smell anything, but then he was a lowly mortal archer and not a magical god from Asgard or whatever Niflheim was. “You are overflowing with it. It was little wonder you were bound with these markings. You could have killed her, but these inks restrain you. Such a shame. All that potential. Perhaps it would be of better use to the world, to _me_ , if you would allow me to rid you of such shackles.”

“It is my question,” She spat. She pointed again at Iron Man, attention completely taken with him, captivated as was everyone those who experienced the suit without any warning. “If he is a mortal how is he in such alien ware?”

“Time is not linear,” Loki replied softly, leaning close to her even as she tried to jerk away. He seemed intoxicated by the stench of power not unlike his own, and he was willing to do anything to grab it.

“What does that mean?”

Loki shook his finger, tutting. He said, “It is my turn now, my dear woman.”

“What is your question?”

“Will you allow me to shatter this magic which keeps you so cruelly under wraps?”

“Why would you do that? What if I decided to kill you immediately after, even with your show of charity?”

“Oh, believe me, sweet Angrboða, this is no act of kindness on my part. Rest assured that it is purely and wholly selfishness. Curiosity. A thirst for strength.”

“You search for strength, _my_ strength, when you are obviously more powerful than me? You say you can destroy these spells etched into my skin where I myself cannot.”

“Of course you cannot, since it is your magic these curses restrict. A helping hand is truly all you need to be free.”

“And that is your hand, I presume?”

“You cannot have an answer when you have not answered my question itself?”

Angrboða considered him for a long moment, before squinting her eyes at him and shaking her head. “No, I will not answer.”

Loki seemed taken aback, suddenly blinking as if awake from a hex, taking a step backwards and considering Angrboða as if he had never seen her before.

“Why not?” He asked, seemingly forgetting the parameters of his own game.

“I’m changing the rules. You wish to help me, you say, but I will not do it unless I know who you are.”

“You wish for my name?”

“I’ll give you that one for free. _Yes_ , stranger, I would know the title of my restorer.”

Loki spent a long moment considering this, before finally accepting the altered terms with no argument, simply returning with a short nod and an almost impressed sigh.

“My name,” he stated into the quiet morning air. “Is Loki.”

“Odinson?” Angrboða said with wide eyes, glancing suddenly to Thor, who nodded without prompt. “Your brother.” She stated, looking to Loki. “How did he know my name?”

“Linearity has been shown to be relative,” Loki started again, but Tony interrupted.

“Timey wimey,” he said, smirking like he was so smart, not even faltering when Angrboða’s stare became distressed as he spoke out loud. It was clear that she hadn’t bought the _mortal in the metal suit_ excuse Loki had been spewing, even though that had been one of the few times Loki had told the truth.

“I don’t know what you’re saying,” she said, finally shaking her head at the company and scowling at them all. “I also do not trust you. I do not believe for an instant that you won’t somehow turn this to your advantage.”

“Ahh, she’s good.” Clint spoke up, once again earning Loki’s scowl. “I like her.”

“You will not let me help you?” The god inquired, seemingly almost desperately, but the woman shook her head.

“For what gains?” But Loki did not have an answer for her. Angrboða did not say anything more, turning on her heel smartly and gracing them all with a suspicious expression which eloquently stated how little she cared for them or any number of their apparent lies, before taking off deeper into the forest.

“Oh, _that_ ’s why she didn’t like us.” Clint said to his fellows, whilst Loki looked imploringly after Angrboða’s retreating back.

“Well, that was… an experience.” Tony admitted. Loki, in the meantime, was slowly starting to drift after her, once more as if in a trace.

Clint used the god’s distraction as a chance to say what had been lingering on his mind since Loki first realised where Angrboða had come from; just before he’d starting attempting to _sniff_ her like an over-eager dog. He said, “Hey, was that me or did that seem more like the Loki we’ve all come to know and love?”

“You mean the one we all actually hate because he destroyed New York and got himself killed?” Tony returned, deliberately ignoring the fact that the love of his life had been hungrily eying a pretty blond who lived one thousand and five-hundred years before Tony was even born.

“That’s the one.”

“He really did, didn’t he? Cue war flashbacks. Eerie.”

“My brother has always been taken with magic. He would claim it was the power of it, the strength, but as Angrboða pointed out, Loki needs no more of that than what he already holds. Angrboða may be strong, but no matter what Loki says she would never be at the same calibre as my brother.”

“Then what drew him?”

“I do not know.” Thor said, shaking his head.

Bruce asked, “What’s the issue with Niflheim?”

“It was once a stronghold of sorcery, long before even my time. They sided with the Jotnar during the war, and were destroyed long before King Laufey was defeated. During our youth, there remained stragglers living on different realms, there likely remain more undiscovered, but as a sorcerer himself, Loki’s fascination sometimes bordered on the obsessive. He claimed to have met some on his travels, but we never believed him.”

“Well apparently he was telling the truth for once.”

“For once,” Thor allowed. “I understand now why he was so obsessed, after Angrboda’s-“ he stopped, and the mood abruptly plummeted.

“Maybe we should go find him before she issues a court order,” Clint joked, following Cap as he led the team through the forest in Loki’s footsteps.

It wasn’t hard to find him; he had been waiting by a large oak tree which climbed high into the sky. Tony might have said something, but all of them were distracted by the god’s wistful expression, and the small stretch of a smile. They had seen it before, once, one Yule-time evening.

Since they knew the ending of this particular tale, it wasn’t hard to deduce that Loki was smitten through to his mangy, cold core. It would take a lot more than even Thor and the Hulk’s combined might to stop the mischief-maker from tracing after Angrboða now he had that look upon his face. The only thing the Avengers could do, ultimately, was attempt to keep him safe – be it from wandering Vikings on a hunt, the unseen enemy which was trying to convince the Avengers to murder him, or Angrboða’s wrath – by following him in turn.

Whilst they walked, as the sun started to settle somewhere low in the mid-afternoon sky, the Avengers resumed their favourite game of grilling Loki for answers. He didn’t seem to know much more than he ever had done, shrugging vacantly at some questions, frowning at others which his brother posed about more specific magics as if he did not understand, and even rolling his eyes as the heroes tried to formulate new hypotheses.

“Please do not try to think,” he implored them, voice strung with exasperation. “I fear you may damage yourselves beyond repair. It would be best if you left it with me.”

“You don’t seem to be doing a whole lot,” Clint complained, but Loki had a quick answer for that too.

“I have time on my side, Barton. Something you do not. I may give you the answers in the future I have yet to experience.”

“We’ve already been as far as we can, and you told us diddly.”

“Then perhaps I had already told you beforehand.”

“No, that’s what I was trying to say- Oh.” Clint stopped, remembering they were jumping through the folds of time like school children with a skipping rope. “Right. Yeah.”

“Evidently, if I do know something I will eventually get around to letting you know. As it is, I know nothing, and some of the things you say confuse me, so they either don’t exist yet or I will learn of them in my own time. Of which, I reiterate, I have plenty of.”

Clint scowled when Natasha nudged him with a smile, small and sweet and playful. They continued on their way.

It was getting dark by the time Cap announced that perhaps they were not going to make any progress, and Loki was forced to concede when his brother settled a large hand over his shoulder and forced him to let his legs rest.

Tony said, “Perhaps it’s for the better,” and maybe there was jealousy in his voice, or perhaps it was concern. They were all thinking of the future, and although the most salient memory of Loki and Angrboða was that of laughter and joy, even if it was influenced heavily by some still unidentified drug in the air, there was still a trace of a tragedy they had yet to witness. Hopefully they never would.

“For the better?” Loki asked, dangerously enough to make all but Tony tense.

The inventor himself shrugged, unintimidated, likely blinded by his own budding emotions, saying: “A mix of magic like that might not be the best idea. And, don’t take this the wrong way, I kinda know you two and I’ve seen the future, and neither are you are exactly…” he searched for the kindest word. “Stable.”

“Stable?”

“Yeah, like, you know,” Tony waved his hand around his head, to indicate some form of neural unbalance. Loki frowned at him, just on the precipice of understanding but aware he should take offence.

“If we are quite through mocking me,” He stated coldly, standing up again sharply whilst Tony’s face twisted a little bit. Clint patted him on the back, sympathetic.

“Tact? Who needs it.”

They started again on a trail, following Loki as he apparently found his path through markings in the undergrowth, but Clint knew how to track and he didn’t see any pattern in the god’s clues. He was half convinced that Loki was blindly _hmm_ ing and _ahh_ ing, leading them in a random direction to save face.

“If you have us lost, cheekbones-“ Tony started, but was hushed sharply by Steve, who dived into a more defendable position, glaring at his teammates when some didn’t immediately follow suit.

Somehow, despite everything, Loki had not lead them astray. He had actually been following something, if the sight of campfire smoke was any indication. Loki’s pointed look was directed at Clint.

“Yeah, yeah,” he hissed. “You and your magical tracking are the best. You win the prize.”

“Shush,” Steve hissed, because there was a chanting, a spell building in the air, and it was had a similar weight in the air to the trick which had the Avengers laughing and giddy and high. It was a signature of Angrboða’s magic, a heady power where Loki’s was more akin to a breeze across skin. It was an aid to him rather than a crutch, because he could wield a weapon and throw a punch. Angrboða’s strength was all in her magic, and here was a heaviness which warned people away.

It almost made the Avengers stop in their tracks, because there was something ominous looming ahead. But Loki paid it no heed, so neither did the heroes. This recklessness was not unfamiliar to the group, but it went a long way to explain why Loki so often found himself in unfavourable circumstances.

They could peak over the undergrowth to see where Angrboða had set up camp for the night, warming herself with a small fire whilst she chanted, eyes closed. She was drawing into the dry mud, abstract symbols which meant little to Clint, but as they were completed they started to glow gold. She stopped every so often to glare at the exposed skin of her arms, the intricate tattoos which dominated her flesh, before trying again.

In the orange glow, she seemed ethereal, and the tattoos littering her biceps were almost writhing with repressed magic straining to be loose. Clint found himself _compelled_ to stay where he was, and a quick glance around the perimeter of Angrboða’s campsite suggested that he wasn’t the only one. He recognised this mind-control, a milder version of the Tesseract’s influence. Powerful sorcery.

Clint’s ability to perceive things was phenomenal – he earned his nickname for a good reason – and he wasn’t pissing around when he said he could see things better at a distance. Looking around instead of fighting the magic which politely suggested (where the Tesseract would order) he turn his head, he spotted what the others couldn’t in the darkness.

He nudged Natasha and pointed towards a small group of mortal men who were hiding in the bushes on the other side of the camp, who likewise stared at Angrboða with the same determination that Loki set upon her, eyes bugging under the pressure of resisting the mind-manipulation. The difference between them was that Loki was quickly and viciously falling head over heels, whereas the men lurking behind the large leaves of the plant life of the forest floor had murder in their eyes. They saw Angrboða as a demon. They were men who had seen her trap the woman with her magic earlier in the day and recognised the danger she posed.

The villagers moved before even the assassins could react, their anger and fear breaking the spell and allowing them to burst towards her, swords and hatchets at the ready. One was thrown back by Angrboða’s quick reactions but three remained standing, and thanks to her mystical restraints Angrboða only had access to so much magic.

The Avengers wanted to jump into action, but they were held back by the magic still infecting the air. The only one who fought through it was Loki, rising up from his own hidden recess with duo blades in hand, calm and destructive as a gentle wave rising into a tsunami. His eyes brewed evil, bloodlust swirling in his emerald irises. The humans didn’t stand a chance.

All four were dead in a swipe of metal and a splash of blood, and Angrboða was left staring up towards the same man rescuing her twice in half as many days, whilst Loki looked down upon her, hardly even breathing heavily from having murdered four men in quick succession.

“Who subjected you to such viciousness, dear? Who left you alone in Midgard with only a fraction of your power to defend yourself with?” He asked her, light and honest, but she did not take it so kindly. Likely she saw him only as a means of patronising her; Loki certainly had a talent of making everything he did seem less sincere than it was. The failing of a master trickster, Clint supposed, was that at some point no one was going to be able to differentiate between a truth and a lie.

“I need no one to save me.” She spat and abandoned her post before he could reply. Loki was once again left behind, watching after the woman he coveted whilst his friends slowly came to rest at his side. Tony broke the silence with an exaggerated sigh.

“You win some, you lose some.” He said, and Loki frowned.

“I’d have preferred to have won.”

“You did.” The inventor reminded the god, pointing at the bodies littering the grounds. “I would certainly call that a win.”

“I did not succeed in gaining her friendliness.”

“Give it time. Perhaps she’ll surprise you.”

“Why does it matter so much, anyway?” Natasha wondered out loud.

“You wanted her for her magic,” Thor answered for him, recognising now what his brother’s original intent had been. “You would release her, and she in turn would release you.”

“Release you from what?” Steve asked.

With a put upon sigh Loki tugged at the collar of his shirt, displaying the joint of his shoulder and arm which was heavily marked with similar inkwork which had kept Angrboða trapped. There were a variety of obvious runic markings and Viking symbolism which hadn’t been present in Angrboða’s bindings, but they were intended with the same purpose.

“I am not as restricted as she, but nonetheless my level of power has been deemed ‘unsafe’.” He sneered as he said it, showing precisely what he felt in regards to the fairness of the bindings held onto him. “Once I break free, however, they will never be able to hold me down like this again. Yes,” he admitted. “Originally my saving her had been in relations to building a quick and easy rapport, in which we would both mutually benefit. Unfortunately-“

“You’ve very quickly sunk into the realms of infatuation?” Tony completed, scoffing. “Don’t give me that face. You’re body language is screaming it. What are you waiting for?”

“She will not give me time of day.”

“You saved her twice, and you are offering her a way out. She might not appreciate it much, but she owes you one or three. So, maybe you can do what you do best and twist this to your advantage.”

“Are you offering me courting advice, Stark?” Loki returned. “Because if you are, it is the worse I have ever heard.”

“Well, I’d probably call it _manipulation_ advice, but you don’t need that from me. So, yeah, dating advice works too. Go get ‘em, tiger.”

“Your lexical patterns concern and confuse me.”

“As long as I keep you on your toes.” Tony returned, pushing him away in the direction his future wife and mother of his children had headed. “Go, quick, else she might slip away again.”

Loki glanced back, eying him, before showing his teeth in a weak parody of a smirk. “Something tells me that is unlikely to happen.”

“I dunno what makes you say that,” Tony returned guiltily, wondering whether he’d inadvertently predetermined the future again. When Loki had gone, he cursed to the sky: “Fucking _cheese_ universe!”

“You didn’t have to do that, Tony.” Steve said softly, his voice practically a comforting hug when he knew Stark would not welcome any genuine physicality. Tony scowled.

“I’m trying to let him go, aren’t I? Pushing him at someone else seems like I’m getting off to a good start.”

“Seriously,” Clint supported the leader of their team, staring, impressed, towards Stark. “You _really_ didn’t have to do that. Think of what might have happened if you hadn’t?”

“Loki wouldn’t have experienced that one happy moment we’ve ever seen him have?” Tony spat, and suddenly his friends weren’t looking at the aloof Tony Stark, man of the world, playboy, inventor, philanthropist, anymore. They were looking at the boy who had unwittingly fallen for someone impossible, and who didn’t know what to do about it except for play the martyr. “No, I can’t take that from him. I couldn’t rob him of his wife and his children and the happiness we all saw. Hell, if we’re not careful, taking that from him might have made him worse.”

And, really, no one knew what to say in return. They would have showed their support if Tony didn’t seem so determined to ignore the fact he’d displayed himself as a hero once again, even when the instance was not life or death, but somehow even more important: the sacrifice of one’s own dreams to further and better the life of another.

Yeah, hero. Clint wouldn’t say it to Tony’s face, but he was definitely thinking it.

Even when Tony ended the conversation with: “And I’m gonna kill all of you in your sleep so that you can’t tell anyone I said any of that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hur hur I dunno if you could count all the plot points but I totally could. Also I’m sneakily drawing parallels. I’m so clever. Good author, sweetie for me.  
> Hey guys sorry for the lateness. I’ve had the shittest week of my life. BUT I also won tickets to see Coriolanus on the extended dates so maybe it’s like the universe balancing. I’ll be chatting about that a lot. A lot a lot. I’M GONNA SEE CORIOLANUS LIVE GUYS.


	11. 15 - The Library

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Eep, sorry I’m late! I went to see Coriolanus on the 13th, I saw Only Lovers Left Alive on the 14th and last week slipped away before I really knew what happened.  
> NEXT THING: I have planned it all out! I know where it’s going and how it’s ending! I’m very proud. It means we have 13 more chapters and an epilogue! I think. Very exciting stuff. Unfortunately we’ve also hit the end of the chapters I’d had pre-written, so I might bump the double-weekly to weekly instead. Sundays or Saturdays probably.  
> I hope you had a happy Ragnarök!

Clint was with Thor and Steve when Bruce burst in, looking a little green about the gills.

Considering that he hid a destructive rage monster beneath his skin, the doctor was normally pretty chill. Even though he should really be watching his blood pressure, he insisted on a particular life-style which involved hyper-stressful things, such as daily interaction with Tony Stark. It didn’t take long for anyone meeting Tony for the first time to recognise that dealing with him took a large amount of patience and a penchant to bite ones tongue when one inevitably walked in on him doing something _weird_. Weird even for a team of aliens, assassins, gamma-monsters and super-soldiers.

Adding to that, Stark wasn’t the only one consumed by the scientific implications of the mysterious time-travelling magician who was apparently as powerful as _Odin_ , though he had a more vested interest. Bruce was likewise completely obsessed with the questions they had no answers to, and was often found arguing with himself when Stark had disappeared into self-imposed isolation, each of them the other’s mirror image, both bent over computer screens and scrawling equations across any flat surface.

The stress Dr Banner put himself through on a daily basis made everyone wonder how he wasn’t permanently in Hulk mode. It was actually quite admirable. Clint couldn’t help his awe regarding the way that Bruce lived with such danger just a scratch’s reach under his skin, and yet still came across as a man who was practically sleep-walking through life. Droopy eyed, calm, collected, he was pretty much the paragon of serenity. But, of course, it was just a visage. The Avengers had learned very quickly just how vicious Doctor Banner could be when he let his anger loose.

And, bursting in on breakfast for the three heroes, he looked for once like a man at the end of his tether. Clint made a mental note of where he left his arrows, assessing how long it would take him to get to his nearest hidey-hole if Banner started getting any twitchier. Thor and Steve weren’t nearly as cautious, but then they were both a less delicate than poor little Hawkeye who actually felt pain when he did something stupid like underestimate Bruce’s more abrasive side.

The scientist looked upset. It didn’t take an engineering wonderkind to figure out why.

Bruce’s boyfriend.

Whilst not quite the horror-story that was the _Toki_ fiasco, Bruce and Dr Daniel Vinter had their moments. Usually they were fine – even Bruce’s erratic timetable worked in accordance with Daniel’s, since he was a nutty scientist as well. He was an expert in… whatever it was. Electromagnetic fields, perhaps. Something with correlated quite nicely with Bruce’s interests. But with the Avengers’ time-travelling tendencies meant there had to be secrecy between strictly the six of them. The secret-keeping and the odd behaviour of what Tony and Bruce were referring to as their ‘echoes’, projections of themselves whilst they were traipsing the galaxy in the distant past, was putting a strain on their relationship.

Jane and Thor had also been arguing when the stress got to them; Thor was emotionally unstable, but was hiding it well. Unfortunately Jane was clever and had been through a lot of shit alongside her godly boyfriend, so could tell when he was hurting. Thor couldn’t specify what was happening, else potentially risk dragging Jane into whatever was happening, and she did not like being left out.

Daniel was much the same. Offended, confused, upset, he had marched to Tony’s floor one day and had brazenly confronted Bruce in front of the rest of the team. Since then, it seemed to have only gotten worse. In light of this, Clint spent a lot of his free-time being thankful that Natasha was an Avenger. If he had tried to keep anything from her she would have forced it out of him before he’d even recognised her interrogation tactics.

“You okay, man?” Clint opened with, when Thor had to swallow through his pancakes and Steve looked a little out of his depth. He wasn’t one for getting in the middle of relationships, was their brave Captain, but once Clint had spoken up he reanimated and gestured for Bruce to grab a plate. The scientist ignored them all, pacing up and down the length of Tony’s kitchen.

“Perhaps we should take this elsewhere?” Steve said, eying the crockery. Pepper was due for a visit sometime over the week and if she arrived to see her twelve-percent tower dented she’d likely have _words_ with the superheroes. Strong ones. Gold-titanium alloy ones.

Bruce ran a hand down his face, took a breath, and slowly turned to face his teammates.

“I can run and get Tony if you’d like.” Clint offered, because a face like that deserved a best friend to rant at.

“No, it’s alright,” Bruce interrupted when the archer started to rise. “It’s okay.”

He sank heavily into the seat on Cap’s right, and looked away when he noticed his teammates staring at him. Slowly, they returned to their breakfasts.

Steve wasn’t willing to let things drop, however, and neither Thor nor Clint rose when they cleared their plates. Bruce ended up looking at Thor, kind, sad Thor, and running a hand over his brow in agitation and defeat.

“It’s Daniel. He’s… I don’t have time for this right now. I want to talk to him, but I don’t even know where to start. Or _how_ to start.”

“Must suck,” Clint agreed, glancing between Thor and Bruce. “Trying to keep them safe.” Thor seemed miserable, drawing his fork across his plate with agitated scratching noises. Clint wanted to make him stop, but didn’t want to risk upsetting him further.

Bruce, however, was more concerned with something else. It was what laid his brow heavy and etched his frown so deeply into his face. Steve and Clint watched him carefully, tensely wondering what was so bad.

Eventually the admission was sighed out of him, “I don’t even know why we started going out. I mean, for so long I’ve been only been able to think about Bet-“ he stopped dead, refusing to continue that sentence even with Steve’s most insistent prompting.

“He asked you out, right?” Clint asked.

“You’re allowed to feel like this during times of conflict, Bruce. Everyone’s different than when they were in peace-time.” Steve said soothingly. “Just remember that this is a complicated period of your life. No one knows what’s happening, and no answers seem forthcoming.”

Clint continued, “Yeah, you’re frustrated at yourself for not solving this and everyone’s on edge waiting for the blink-and-you-miss-it transposition of our matter across time and space. We’re all a little snappish. Me and Natasha have been keeping out of each other’s way completely.”

Natasha was away on missions when Clint wasn’t, both worried that they’d end up yelling at each other if they spoke for more than five minutes. They found each other, instead, in the middle of the night, and slept with their foreheads pressed together. Only two days ago she had left before dawn without even stirring a hair on Clint’s head. She was likely going to be away for half a week, and Clint missed her keenly when she wasn’t here. He missed her when she was. He hated the fact they were both so fiery, so strong-willed and dangerous, and that if they tried to function normally they’d end up resembling a bloodier version of Bruce and Daniel.

Bruce seemed to understand this, and tried to support him with a faint expression. They were all in the same boat, in the end. Steve was compassionate enough to empathise, possibly thinking back to a woman he’d been forced to leave seventy years behind.

“We’re a miserable bunch,” Bruce said into the silence, and Thor laughed, like a trickle of gold. Precious and perfect, the god’s smile, alongside his silent suffering and strength, was enough to inspire them all to buck up and focus on what was important.

“You guys haven’t broken up, have you?” Clint asked, heartened when Bruce shook his head.

“Of course not. I love him.”

“I love her.” Clint agreed, and Thor grinned at them.

“I love her!” He exclaimed in accordance, and then turned his large baby-blues towards their lonely blond companion, only to catch sight of him watching them all with fondness.

He rolled his eyes. “Don’t you think I have enough of my plate dealing with all your relationship problems?” he stated, timed to match exactly to Tony Stark’s first morning appearance.

“Who’s having relationship problems?” He asked before a _good morning_ , face morphing into delight at the first sign of gossip.

“Compared to you?” Steve replied. “No one.”

“Oh, Cap makes a funny,” Tony replied, turning away to scour through his cupboards. “Have you eaten _everything_?”

“All but the cutlery.” Bruce confirmed as the inventor sunk into a chair and scowled at them all.

“I regret opening my doors to you people.”

“I like it,” Clint disagreed. “It’s like an extended sleepover. Everyone is too polite to leave and after a while everything starts to get awkward.”

“We’re going to starve first.” Bruce returned.

“Tony can pay for it.”

“Tony would sooner pay to watch you starve,” the inventor said.

He sat close to Bruce, as if sensing his best friend’s distress. Bruce let him steal whatever dregs remained on his plate, and the room eased into Stark grilling them all on what he’d missed, laughing at their woes. The Avengers returned with snide comments regarding Loki, all of which were rebuffed instantly by Tony’s pancake smeared retaliations. Thor let them chat, but didn’t join in.

Thor wasn’t the most talkative of men. He was too used to being out-worded by Loki, who had a tongue like a weapon and used it like a shield. Thor relied on his strength as much as Loki relied on his wit, but that didn’t make Thor any more useless in a conversation than Loki was in a fight. Thor was a quiet presence, calming and supportive, and even though he had nothing to say he was hard to ignore. He was as much a part of the discussion as Tony was, the butt of an increasingly outrageous array of innuendos, even if all Thor did was laugh and smile and hide his sadness, as they all did, beneath the love he had for his friends.

“Is it Dr. Tattoo?” Tony suddenly asked, as if struck by a revelation, but he was interrupted by a sudden shift in light which had them exclaiming and covering their eyes. Gone from Tony’s early-morning, artificially lit kitchen, they blinked suddenly in the bright, vaulted halls of the Palace of Asgard. It was a nice change from their usual meeting spot: the side streets of the town which stood in the structure’s magnificent, intimidating shadow.

Clint said, “I’d missed this. Much better than forest. Like the dwarves, I am putting a veto on forests. Woe forbid if someone presents me with forest dwarves.”

“I do not believe that forest dwarves exist-“ Thor started.

“Regarding location, I am not sure how much of a choice we get,” Steve reminded them, solemn and tense. Glancing around, the entire group suddenly noticed they had an extra member to round their number back up to a happy even.

“Tasha!” Clint exclaimed, lowing his bow when the unexpected smudge of black and red had made him jerk straight to fight-or-flight. She allowed him a clench of hands, a small touch between them in place of the usual reunion in the blanketed night, and then she let go.

“Why are we here?” Because being in Asgard last time hadn’t ended well for anyone.

They looked to Thor for guidance, but he was distracted with his own walls. He seemed more comfortable roaming his home than darting between the trees of a distant world, discovering a history he had never shared with his brother. “I am not sure when we are, but it is more recent history than our other trips.” He stopped, paused, restated: “Barring our last venture here.”

“Yeah, I’d like to _not_ relive that,” Tony stated, clunking his way across the hall with his heavy metal suit pounding heavily against the golden décor. The suit itself was another conundrum to add to their growing collection of the weird and wonderful. Tony kept on saying that he still had no idea how it turned up or where it had come from, but the way he’d been going on about cheese and folds in time and timey whimey, it wasn’t exactly hard to figure out in which direction Tony’s hypotheses were pointing.

If they ever did find the individual responsible for all of this, the Avengers would have to save the poor soul from Bruce and Tony’s insatiable curiosity.

 The agenda for today seemed to be about taking it easy, which boded better than usual, and as had fallen into habit, they were working on the presumption that Loki would wander into their paths if they walked for long enough. They strolled leisurely through the castle, as big as a city within itself and twice as tall, and Thor gave no signals that they should be worried. They _were_ of course, because Loki was and would always remain a trouble-making hooligan who often wound up in the dead centre of the closest crisis without even trying, but they were so adjusted to the knowledge that they’d never get a chance to experience something normal with him that it hardly fazed them. Sharing a picnic with Loki would feel more threatening that charging into battle alongside him.

And on a positive note, the Avengers also hadn’t killed him recently. Things were starting to look up.

They didn’t have to traverse the realm for long to find Loki, as they knew they wouldn’t. They’d hardly even moved a floor before they found themselves on the right path.

Thor had treated them to a tour, but thanks to his newest company of two scientists, two assassins, and a ‘40s lad chock full of curiosity and awe, he was so overcome with unanswered questions (overrun as any words were by the mouthier of the Avengers, quicker and looser with their tongue, darting out theories before Thor could give any solutions) that they had hardly managed a single staircase. Despite how a lot of the rooms were the same, or the halls this high up were empty of people, there were plenty of windows and a dazzling view, which allowed Clint a fairly literal birds-eye perspective. There were birds which existed on Earth which would be queasy to find themselves this high up. There were clouds lower than they were.

“How was the mission?” Clint slipped in between Natasha and Steve, half a moment away from furiously pouting at their red and blue leader for stealing away her attention.

“Interrupted,” she stated pointedly, manoeuvring herself back next to Steve so they could continue their own contemplations. Clint fell back towards the other three, ignoring Thor’s pleading eyes when he looked to the archer for rescue. 

“Where are we going?” Natasha saved the day instead, and Thor thankfully took the opportunity to tear away from the overeager scientists with their complex questions about energy and their fancy-schmancy words (the Asgardians had a bad habit of slapping the label ‘magic’ onto anything approaching science). He pointed, and when he was asked why that particular hallway, Thor shrugged.

“A hunch,” he admitted, heading towards the blaze of light at the end of the corridor.

When they finally emerged, they found themselves a step away from a large balcony which overlooked the entire kingdom. It felt precarious, simply by want of being so high, and whilst the Avengers were no strangers to heights, many of them New Yorkers, born and raised, there was a definite distinction between a skyscraper and _this_. Clint had fallen off skyscrapers, accidentally or on purpose, too many times to count. He was also trained to fly jets, he jumped out of said jets and he enjoyed the speed and the terrifying, heart-pounding altitudes. He was named after a bird for Christ’s sake.

This was different. It would take a braver man then Clint Barton to take the first step out onto that death trap.

Movement caught their eye before any of them gathered up the guts to follow Thor, who was just about to walk out into the open air.

The Avengers observed the tall, strong silhouettes of Loki and his time-appropriate brother, magnificent and together, highlighted by the dim backdrop, put into stark contrast by the dull gold of light in the skies.

Like day and night, darkness and light, Loki slipping into the background of the dark whilst Thor stood out proudly against it with his shining hair and the deep red of his cape. They were a striking pair, strong and standing on what seemed to be the very edge of the world, watching out onto their kingdom.

Thor, the one that was living in Loki’s time-stream, turned when he heard the click of shoes coming up behind him, and several of the Avengers instinctively ducked out of sight. Their Thor, taken out of his present and pushed into the past, was frowning as Sif walked passed him and towards his double. Loki was matching his expression, but his face shifted when he finally spotted the unseen ghosts of the future.

He made a gesture over his brother’s shoulder towards the superheroes, gesturing out a door. He stopped and smiled snidely at Sif when she paused her hushed conversation with Thor to glare at him.

“Where are you going?” His Thor asked when Loki stepped back.

“Away,” he answered, eyes still on Sif who followed his leaving with a sharp, angry look. The Thor with the Avengers backed himself and the team from the balcony with a swift step, turning towards where Loki should have emerged to greet them had there not been a wall to stop them.

“There are two doors,” Thor elaborated, leading them back down the corridor. “We’ll meet him elsewhere so that no one, _I_ ,” he corrected, meaning his past-self. “Cannot observe him speaking to the air.”

But it wasn’t quite as easy as the god made it seem. Whilst this was his palace, the place he grew up in, Thor could not point them in any definite direction. “There are several passage ways he could have taken, and it is entirely possible we’ve missed him.”

“He’ll find us,” Clint inserted with optimism. “He seemed eager to get away from the warrior who would gladly kill him with her eyes.”

In his defence, Thor stated: “I recognised their animosity at the time, and felt it keenly. They could trust one another in a fight, but the real battle was getting them to remain civil elsewhere.”

“History between the two of them?”

“Likely not the sort you’re thinking of.” Thor corrected.

They were ready to give up, sit down and wait for Loki to find them, when they decided that the next few turns were to be their last. However, destiny or accurate hindsight on the part of their unknown host, ensured that it didn’t get to that.

It only took another corner and almost immediately before they threw in the towel, Loki, with his hair curling around his ears and dressed in a tunic which they had never seen before, casual and yet regal, met them half way, bumping straight into Natasha mid-step.

The dark-haired god stopped, catching himself and Black Widow who, in turn, copied his motion. The two of them ended up with hands on each others’ biceps, staring bewilderedly at one another, before Loki smiled brightly down at the woman who had almost tripped him over his own feet.

“You!” He greeted with such familiarity and friendliness that it took the breath from Clint’s lungs.

Even Natasha, cold and crispy towards those she didn’t trust, found herself so overwhelmed that she couldn’t resist smiling in turn, eyes bright with surprise and an unfounded joy which she felt seep through her despite lack of causality.

Loki looked to each of them in turn, happiness infecting them as his smile only got wider, until his gaze landed on Tony, at which point Loki’s entire face dropped. So, in retaliation, did the elevated moods of every single Avenger. Tony’s expression plummeted especially hard, drooping further when Loki quickly rebuilt a mask and smiled again, this time guarded and cold. For Clint, it was a face which reminded him keenly of a bright-eyed monster with a spear in hand.

“I have news for you.” He said, and even his voice had shifted back to the dark slide of syllables against teeth.

“News?” Tony said, recovering his own façade almost as quickly as the liesmith, a match made in heaven. Or that other place, further south. “Good or bad?”

“Depends on your point of view,” Loki admitted. “It is regarding this,” he gestured to them sharply. “Situation.”

“You know who’s doing this to us?” Bruce asked eagerly, stopping short of stepping forward when Loki held out a hand.

“I wouldn’t like to raise your hopes.” He said instead, nicely dampening any they had.

The walk was strangely tense as they followed him through the floors, and not even Thor moved to alter the situation. He had asked the date, but the answer was not comparable to Earth years so he hadn’t bother to translate. However, his frown, and the way Loki was acting, was eloquent.

They wound up in a dark room, and Loki waved a hand to summon a candle, holding it in front of them and producing the ice-slip of a smile he had taken to wearing. In the next instant he was clutching an arrow that had whizzed towards his chest, aiming a glare in Clint’s direction.

“Hawkeye!” Captain America exclaimed, but no one else bothered to speak up when Loki’s icy façade finally started to melt away.

“The guy responds to force,” Clint replied instead, rolling his eyes though it wasn’t seen in the dim candlelight. “Anyway, he was creeping me out.”

Loki was laughing now, a sound that was as infectious as it was harsh. He tossed the arrow back to the archer, though threatened to do something unspeakable if he tried that again. Clint primly informed him that there was no chance of that not happening twice.

They settled, eventually, around a table, and whilst the unease remained it was more of a background buzz against the growing anticipation of news. Anything was better than the constant weight of worry as everyone tried to keep out of everyone else’s way. Natasha, to Clint’s delight, had sat down next to him as he took the place opposite Loki. Their fingers were laced together under the table, and Clint felt like he was glowing.

“So?” Tony asked, as Loki placed down the candle and failed to immediately offer any answers. “What do you know? Right now we’ll take anything at all.”

Loki shook his head, rubbing his eyes tiredly. His tone was terse when he addressed them. “The magic doesn’t exist.”

“Obviously, it does.” Tony returned snappishly.

“Then it doesn’t exist _yet_.”

“What does that mean?” Natasha asked. “Is it created?”

“What, so it’s like a science? You have to develop it, discover it?” Bruce asked.

“Build upon the blocks laid down before, yes,” Loki nodded. “Shape-shifting could only be done once we figured out transmutation, which could only be done when we learned of the specifics of justice magic, which in turn we discovered through accident and trial and error.”

“Loki helped create a lot of it,” Thor inserted proudly. “His and my mother’s work altered the way magic was shaped and applied.”

“It was based largely from the sorcerers of Niflheim. It was not _new_ so much as it was lost.” Loki corrected modestly, but his face was bright with pride. Clint considered that it was a shame the brothers always missed each other’s gazes, because if they didn’t perhaps none of this would have happened.

“Right, so where are we and why did you bring us here?”

“The library,” Thor answered.

“Why’s it so dark? Are you guys allergic to books?”

“No,” Thor replied, at the same time Loki snidely said, “Yes.” The blond rolled his eyes whilst Loki’s expression further lightened. Every moment was bringing him closer to the man they had come to like, rather than the villain they had first known.

“I’ve spent several years of my life perusing these shelves,” Loki stated pointing into the blackness, and Thor attested to the truth of it, insisting that Loki was not exaggerating. Considering the Asgardian’s abnormal longevity, it wasn’t a stretch to assume Loki _had_ , over the course of his life, wasted a collective many _years_ lost amid the invisible books.

“Why is it so dark though?”

“Some of these books are older than Midgard,” Loki stated plainly. “They’re older than I should ever aspire to be. The universe is a cycle, but there are always survivors. There are some books here which are priority for those survivors, and so have outlived _universes._ They’re unreadable, of course, untranslatable, but they are delicate.”

“No sunlight?”

“No sunlight.” Loki confirmed. “The further down the halls you wander, the older the texts. The longer you travel,” he said ominously. “The deeper the darkness.”

“What’s that, a metaphor?” Clint returned, but was elbowed by Captain America, of all people. Shushed, appropriately, like an old lady to a miscreant in a library.

Tony and Clint shared a dark look, and his grip on Natasha’s hand became tighter. The assassin, for her part, moved the conversation forward quickly, distracting Loki from the resistant blabbermouth.

Her interests were more morbid, dark with curiosity. “Is it dangerous?”

“The library? Certainly. People have been lost between these books.”

“Loki was once,” Thor stated, his voice brimming with his usual humour. His tone, however, was hushed, like even speaking too loudly was taboo. “No one could find him for weeks.”

“Few dared.” Loki corrected.

“When he was a child, our mother kept a close eye on him when he showed an interest in this place, distracting him with magic and lessons. When he was allowed to venture in here, it was always with an escort. He slipped away the first time it was not our mother who accompanied him, and was not heard from for a month.”

Perhaps the Avengers would have laughed, thanks to the lightness of the story, had it not been for the imagery of a Loki younger than even when they had met him in Norway, alone in this dense gloom for weeks.

“It’s larger than you can imagine,” Loki whispered, making a few of them jump. His sharp eyes narrowed in on Bruce, but when he noticed that the doctor was not fazed he settled once again. “It is almost endless, or feels like it should be. Even with the light we can use, everything looks the same.”

“I can’t even _see_ the shelves,” Tony nodded, wincing towards the blackness. The delicate flicker of their candle only illuminated enough of Loki’s face for them to see the playful glint of his eyes, and he had totally disappeared into the background by the roots of his pitch black hair.

“Did you ever reach the back of it?” Thor asked, intrigued, whilst Loki shook his head.

“I would not be here if I had. There are places no creature should travel, where not even light dares touch.” A sucker for dramatics, Loki waved a hand and transported the flame of the candle into his palm, making it dance around his fingers. For a moment it extinguished, and the Avengers all made various noises of distress, fear and surprise making them tetchy, before the candle re-sparked and Loki sat grinning with all his shiny white teeth on show.

“Don’t,” Natasha warned him from playing tricks again, and his expression gained a molar or two, delighted to see his companions so on edge.

“So what is your news?” Thor interrupted, when Loki’s mischievous face started to get creepy.

“Did you find something?” Bruce asked.

“I did, but I am not sure you’re going to like it.”

“Why not?”

Loki stood and told them to stay put, disappearing into the dense shadows and leaving the light with the Avengers.

“Is he alright on his own?” Tony asked worriedly, looking after the god with a mixture of longing and fear. Thor waved his worries away with another anecdote of when Loki had been misplaced amidst all of the books.

He concluded, “He survived more than a brief wander into the dark, Iron Man.”

Loki returned with a leather-bound book, crinkling at the edges, soft with age and brimming with a gentle golden glow. It only opened when Loki applied a liberal amount of strength to its cover.

After a moment of staring at the content, it was Tony who was man enough to speak up.

“It’s blank.”

“Your intelligence never ceases to amaze.”

“Why is this relevant?” Natasha interrupted.

“I have already said you are not going to like it.”

It was Bruce who pieced together the puzzle quicker, rubbing a thumb over his brow with a heavy sigh.

“The magic doesn’t exist, does it?”

“I knew there was a bright spark between the six of you. No, Dr. Banner, there is no such thing.”

“What does that mean?”

Loki’s face was alight with pleasure, with curiosity and the end of a long trail. Longer for him than it had been for the Avengers – a thousand years or more of knowing about something which was seemingly non-existent; of six impossible people jumping in and out of his life like the laws of magic did not apply.

Apparently, they really didn’t.

“Perhaps we have simply not found the correct texts.”

“ _We_?” Loki asked, sneering at his brother. “Certainly, you’ve all been of immense assistance. Especially you, brother, why I’d wager you’ll walk through that door any moment now, ready to lend me an extra set of eyes.”

“I thought we’d agreed no wagers,” Tony said, only partially in jest. Loki rolled his eyes.

Thor said, “I am merely suggesting there is an easier way then trying to make magic from scratch.”

“Whoa, we’re _making_ this?” Tony interrupted, and now his voice was tinged with the same manic glee that infected Loki’s expression. “Is he serious? Are we going to develop it ourselves?”

“We may not have to,” Thor insisted, and had Steve to back him up.

“Surely travelling through time cannot be only _our_ idea. There must have been sorcerers before you who have considered it?”

“Certainly, it has been mentioned in hundreds of texts,” Loki admitted testily. “What doesn’t exist, however, is any proof of it being possible.”

“Ahem,” Clint coughed, gesturing to himself. “Do I look like I belong in whatever century we’re stuck in?”

“I rather doubt you look like you belong in any century, Barton,” Loki criticised good-naturedly, eying his SHIELD uniform. “You are fairly… distinctive.”

“Says the one in green leather with gold accessories.”

Loki ignored him, saying, “The fact we have you as evidence serves to show that we _can_ make it. However, it is entirely possible that this is the first time in hundreds of _cycles_ of the universe that it has happened. I do not believe there will be any texts, even in the depths of these halls, which can help us.”

“Can you not try?” Thor said pleadingly. “Instead of risking your life trying to discover something with no prior knowledge.”

“I have you.” Loki corrected, meeting each of the team’s eyes. “And that shall have to be enough.”

But Thor was not satisfied with Loki’s ultimatum, replacing it with his own. One word, which seemed to shake Loki to his core. “Please.”

The dark-haired god spent a long moment staring at his brother, eyes shifting to scrutinise each of Thor’s electric-blue irises, face blank with disbelief. Eventually, as the heavy hand Thor had put upon his shoulder seemed to weigh him down more than support him, he admitted defeat.

“I shall ask Holboðen to look further down the halls. It’ll be good for him to get lost for a week on an impossible quest.”

“Holboðen’s here?” Thor asked, making Loki frown.

“Should he not be?”

Even Steve and Bruce, not trained in the art of catching a lie or interpreting a pause, could tell Thor was hiding something. For himself, Thor suddenly seemed to remember that he was from the future and there were things that he should not share.

Loki, who could read his brother like a musician could their sheet-music, narrowed his eyes in suspicion.

“Are you telling me to be wary of the boy?”

“I’m saying that it wouldn’t hurt you to be careful. I know of your fondness for him.”

“He is a promising student,” Loki defended, but his voice had become as guarded as his words, and he turned back to the blank book with a complicated veil shrouding his emerald eyes.

He stared at the parchment for a long time, none of his companions daring to break the silence, until he himself ripped his attention from the table and turned to critically gaze at his older sibling.

“Are you _sure_ it’s not father?”

“Yes, I’m sure. Why do you ask?”

“How are you so sure?”

“ _Why_?” Thor said again, and Loki held up a hand against his rising anger.

“As you know, it would take a monumental amount of strength to do anything like this, especially with six of you. I believe I could possibly transport myself, with a lot of time and practice, but I am not confident I could even take one person with me. Alive, anyway.”

“Building blocks,” Bruce reminded him. “Science is built upon the foundations we lay.”

“Even if we can achieve something little today,” Steve jumped in, magnetically attracted to anything resembling a pep-talk. “What it can grow into may be monumental.”

“Something to tell your kids and grand-kids, right?” Stark agreed, at just the wrong time. Loki froze, head bending over the blank book, and Tony looked to Thor for guidance. Thor, usually so supportive, shook his head.

“Erm,” Tony tried, a weak attempt to find the words that may prove healing. “That was… crass, I guess. I didn’t mean-“

Clint caught sight of a drop of water catching the open page, but Loki snapped closed the book and was stepping away, swiping at his eyes, before anyone could mention it.

He grabbed Tony by the back of his armoured neck, and dragged him away with an unbelievable display of force. The other Avengers scrambled up, Bruce having the foresight to grab the candle, and raced after the protesting noises Tony made as he was taken deeper into the library.

As they walked, Clint finally spotted some of the illusive shelves, and was concerned by the way the light seemed to reflect off their spines. He was half convinced a few of them _writhed_ , but he shook off his unease in order to follow Tony’s distress calls. He had yet to let go of Natasha’s hand.

The Avengers reached a corner in time to hear shouting, and rounded it quickly enough to cast light on the unfortunate situation just in time to spy a startled, wide-eyed Tony getting pushed against a bookcase by a scowling Loki, only to have the god slam them together and seal Tony’s lips with his own.

Tony immediately started grappling for purchase on his captor’s clothes, clinging on wherever he could, making a weak noise and returning the kiss –biting and bloody – with vigour. What was left of the Avengers ended up staring, dumbstruck, as Tony and Loki stapled themselves together, letting their eyes fall close with an exhale of relief.

So much for letting him go, Clint considered. That boat was officially capsized. The hope of Tony being able to pick up and move on likewise sunk into the choppy waters of hopelessness, because now he’d be impossible to deal with. He’d be love-struck and giddy, remembering the way Loki felt against him, before quickly recalling that Loki was _married_ , or Loki was _evil_ , or, admittedly the worst, that Loki had _died_. God help him, god help them all, when Tony’s mind caught up with reality and forced him to remember that he was in love with someone so unobtainable that theirs was a tragedy which would have made Romeo and Juliet weep.

“ _Ahem_ ,” He eventually interrupted, when he realised no one else was willing to split apart the seemingly happy couple. He glanced to Natasha, betrayed, but only received a shrug in reply. “What brought this on?”

 Loki stepped away from Tony, allowing the inventor to blink towards the candlelight with his dopey, dazed expression still prominent on his features. Clint rolled his eyes, whilst a few of the company started to laugh. Thor was chief amongst the merry-makers, congratulating them with such aplomb that it was almost impossible to see his grief beneath his joy.

“Seriously,” Tony stated, blinking slowly back to the present. “I’d love an answer to Merida’s question. I thought for a second that you were dragging me here to kill me.”

“Tony, if I did not know by now that you are a tactless, insensitive creature with no prior regard for the feelings of others, then I do not deserve any of my _fondly_ gifted titles.”

“Takes one to know one.”

Loki smiled at him, and it was weak and small, but it lacked the usual careful craft that the rest of his expressions held; the meticulousness of his face which suggested everything he showed was displayed by choice.

For once, he seemed real, and it was Tony who had brought him to that.

One moment, they were all marvelling at the sudden turn of events, the quick shift in emotions, and the next they were waking up in Stark Tower, dazed and blind by the encroaching darkness.

Clint was the first to speak, “What was the point of that? Nothing even happened.” He looked to Tony, who was closest to the window, his dark hair a stark contrast to the pale moonlight at his back. He returned Clint’s gaze, and Clint altered his tone.

“Seriously, nothing _bad_ happened to Loki. Nothing but us. Has that happened before? There was no demon horse, no Angrboða, and hardly even any Thor. He was just… talking. We actually got a few things figured out.” Clint gestured to Tony, who offered a lethargic shrug, still seeming like he was waking up.

“It was not long after that I was sent to Earth,” Thor answered for them, eyes cast to the floor. “Hardly three years, perhaps less. I suppose it would be one of the last times I saw my brother sane.”

The Avengers allowed the silence to linger, and Clint realised through the heaviness of the room that he was still firmly attached to Natasha’s long fingers.

“Why did he kiss me?” Tony spoke almost quietly to hear. “I thought he was married.”

“It is complicated,” Thor replied. “At that point in time, if I am not mistaken, Sigyn-“ he stopped, and shook his head.

“Sigyn what?” Tony demanded, but the god bit his lip and refused to say.

“I do not doubt that we shall see first-hand. Personally, I will be glad to find out the real story.”

“ _What_ real story?” Tony demanded, aggravated, but stopped to breathe when Steve reached out a hand to wrap around his arm.

“It’s okay, Tony.” He replied. “We’re going to figure it out.”

“We can’t help him, can we? He’s dead, and we can’t do anything to change it. There is a turning point we are going to see, and I don’t want to know because what if it turns out to be us? It is _always_ us! Hell, we’re the one that encouraged him to figure out time-travel! If we hadn’t have done that not ten minutes ago, perhaps none of this would be happening at all.”

“Tony, we can’t blame ourselves-“ Bruce tried, but the inventor wasn’t listening. He stood up sharply and moved away, pausing by the bar for a second before shaking his head and moving on.

“Perhaps we should call Pepper.” Steve suggested quietly.

Watching him disappear into his own room, Clint knew that one day Tony would overcome whatever he was experiencing. The archer could say from personal experience that enough ignorance or the right amount of acceptance could heal any wounds. That didn’t mean that it didn’t take time, or that allowing it to heal didn’t hurt as much as letting it fester.

In the shadows, Thor was practically invisible. But Hawkeye was an expert in his field, and he hadn’t earned his nickname by random chance.

But neither could he help him. So he overlooked the silent tears of a god and pretended he didn’t see.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thor is my favourite character right now. He hurts my soul, he’s so brave.  
> Also, for those who were interested, Coriolanus was… weird. Not the show, the performance was amazing and all the actors were flawless and I’m a little bit in love with the plot and the concept and the power of Caius. What was weird was having Hiddleston right there. He looked EXACTLY AS HE DOES IN THE PICTURES I don’t know why it’s weird but it is. The Warehouse is tiny so it was nice to have everyone so close, but I don’t know how else to describe it. It didn’t feel real having him right there. Also his character is so intimidating that I felt like I didn’t want him so close. I think that’s why it worked so well as a production.


	12. 4 - The Halls of Asgard

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TRIGGER WARNING: mentions of domestic violence.
> 
> I have been asked for tumblr links: [my usual blog](http://www.space-leviathan.tumblr.com), and [my writing blog](http://www.spaceleviathan.tumblr.com). It's mainly me freaking out over the fact I have a writing blog.

Since the last time they’d been here scenery had only changed minutely. Clint rather thought that he was starting to get sick of the Realm Eternal. He was also beginning to recognise that the name sickeningly apt. On the other hand, as Thor had promised, it certainly wasn’t a forest.

It was dark, so early that Clint was offended to be awake, and the streets were empty of even the most determined of night owls. The team kept quiet, including Tony, who seemed skittish and had been for a week – ever since the last incident with Loki in the library. Bruce and Thor both had tried to bring it up, but when Tony immediately threw up his walls they were quick to drop the subject, albeit with a little of Cap’s insistence. Steve said things like, _let him be_ and _he has to work it out on his own_. _Let him come to us_.

But it was Tony, and he was the type of man to try everything except talking about his feelings. Sometimes they caught him unawares, when his defences were low with stress or alcohol, but for the most part he kept to himself and snapped at everyone else – even Bruce.

Anyway, Steve might not be the best person to take advice from regarding emotions. He handled his own by smothering them with work or busting his fist through punching bags. He still hadn’t talked about the Winter Soldier incident in any depth, and just smiled and bee-lined to the gym whenever someone dared bring it up.

Bringing Tony back to Asgard straight after what had happened last time, rather than dropping them somewhere new and terrifying, seemed like a nasty little reminder that the Loki waiting for him, statistically, would not be the one who had showed such affection in the darkened library. Only one in ten visits had ended so optimistically for Tony’s growing crush, and the majority of their other time-travelling jaunts had left Loki mauled or dead. Therefore, probabilistically, today would end up being the latter.

The continuity of Asgard was, if anything, admirable. Clint would personally label it _annoying_ or _unhelpful_ , and Thor, Steve and Natasha were equally as irate at being unable to pinpoint times or determine a pattern. Tony and Bruce were more relaxed, if only because they’d already burnt themselves out by constantly asking the same question.

Thor could only shrug and suggest that the time period was when he was younger, but for a god with over a thousand years under his belt, _younger_ could be any point in a nine-hundred year time-span. Clint spared a thought for Tony, because the younger Loki was when they met him, the further away he’d be from his own feelings towards Iron Man. And, more selfishly, the more Clint would be forced to spend time with a boy who was bright and clever and, dare he say it, _innocent_. It was unsettling how easily the word could slot into his mental representation of the green-eyed god these last few weeks.

Thor led them aimlessly for a while, pointing out sights they hadn’t had time to appreciate in previous trips, and with no Loki showing up to guide them and no new ideas occurring to Thor, they wound up in the training area. Thor assured them that it would be empty, the sun only just yawning itself awake over the lowest plains of the realm. It was reasonable to assume no one would be conscious enough to spar; not even Captain America or Black Widow could force themselves to rise this early for training. An Asgardian, many of whom spent their nights with mead and stories, would certainly not be so resolute.

The yelling from the upcoming courtyard, however, proved them wrong. It went to show that the realm certainly reflected the people within, as the noises were ones which the Avengers themselves were familiar with when in training. Thor, too, barring the length of his hair and the arrogance in his grin, was as eternal as the lands he was bred in.

Similarly, Loki, who clashed with his brother as Thor tossed a hammer that was not Mjölnir between them, had the same voice and the same face, though they hardly recognised the encouragements and the teases despite the sneer the God of Mischief was known for. He meant it in good fun, and even his smirks seemed lighter under the rising dawn of his home world.

The training was not intensive – nothing like what Cap had them do, especially after the whole bionic-armed assassin thing came up – and it seemed more like a game of who could catch the heavy hammer before it hit anything important. Thor threw harder, but Loki returned quicker. The damage they could do to one another, if they weren’t so well groomed by way of handling weapons, could fuel many new nightmares for future restless nights.

Thor was yelling ferociously, as if trying to intimidate his brother, but would ruin the effect with a laugh every time the weapon was caught and launched back. Loki, likewise, would make a war-noise with every fling but his smile held more warmth than his shouts did malice.

Thor, predictably, was dressed in the bare minimum of a thin shirt that was unbuttoned to his navel and cotton trousers, despite the chill of the night. Loki had his sleeves rolled to his elbow, both of them flush with exercise, and the Avengers had never seen him so modestly dressed. Even after months in the wilderness, emerging with an eight-legged foal at his side, Loki had still not been in his summer casual.

Anticipating heat, perhaps, the princes had neglected to keep themselves dressed beyond common decency. Thor had not been able to tell them a date, but had been capable of differentiating seasons. Somehow. Clint was fuzzy on the details. However, summer in Asgard was promising to be a scorcher, even though Asgard seemed mostly sunny anyway, and the archer was thankful for his own short sleeves.

The Avengers kept up their silence as they watched, and Thor and Loki’s voices were the only two which interrupted the silence of the realm. Clint fancied the whole world could hear them, not even birds sung to drown them out, and perhaps this was how the Asgardians woke up: to the playful clashes of battle between the sons of Asgard. Clint wondered what woke them up now.

The six newcomers didn’t want to distract the mischief-maker, so stepped back to leave the princes to themselves. Thor had gotten a good look at his brother, so the team rounded on him for answers. The god shrugged, lips thin, with no conclusions.

“Great,” Tony said to himself as Cap led them back the way they came, because the road always led to Loki and Loki was right there laughing, the only thing posing a threat was his own brother who was never any threat at all.

Clint didn’t see her until the sun slipped through the columns, but there sat a woman to the far right of the two duelling gods, silent and passive, and had it not been for the vivid shade of her hair (gold, and Clint didn’t mean like Thor’s unmanly blondness, Clint meant like stolen straight out of El Dorado _gold_ ), her stillness would have made her invisible to even Clint’s keen eyes. Natasha snapped to attention at the same time, nudging Steve beside her who assessed the situation with his super-soldier tactical thinking. He saw what the SHIELD agents saw, and what they saw was a lot less of a quiet richly-dressed lady she obviously wanted to portray herself as.

Clint had seen that forced poise before in the assassin who stood on his right. He’d seen that carefully built façade on Natasha long before she ever became teammate material. He saw it the first time he met her, at long range when he was still resolved to the original mission plan.

The woman with the golden hair watched the brothers in her own heavy silence, and she did not twitch nor fidget nor even sigh. And like Natasha there was something dangerous in her gaze, like jealousy.

Loki tossed the hammer particularly hard, off-course and crashing far over Thor’s shoulder, and the younger version of the god barked in merriment, delighted to see a flaw in Loki’s technique, proclaiming himself the better fighter even as he scampered away to collect their toy. Any notion of fault in his swing was dissolved for the Avengers when they saw the trickster’s eye sweep over them playfully. He followed the line of their gazes towards the woman. Natasha had become more battle-ready whilst Steve’s grip on his shield became tighter. Clint had not seen any motion to warrant preparation for a fight, but kept himself ready to draw at any moment. He trusted his team, even the twitchy red-head.

Loki sent them a sweeping gesture. It seemed welcoming, if a little dismissive. _I’ll get to you_ , but first he stepped closer to the woman who gleamed soundlessly in the sun.

“Perhaps it would be better use of your morning to join us?” He said, and if there was any trickery in his invitation his voice did not show it. Her eyes had narrowed as soon as he threw the hammer off-course, and since then her suspicions had only grown. Clint could empathise; Loki was not the type to miss, even for Thor’s sake. In fact, Loki was more likely to attempt to keep his brother humble (if only by pushing him headfirst into dangerous situations neither were equipped to deal with) than feed his ego. But then, Loki could have changed. Unlike the rest of this world, Loki never seemed to stop.

The woman did not seem more comfortable when he outstretched a hand to help her up. She clasped her own around themselves tightly, and Loki curled his fingers into his palm. His face didn’t change from the pleasant stretch of a smile, and if he was offended by her distrust then he did not deign to show it.

She finally said, “I am not dressed for it,” and the hem of her skirt and the long sweep of her sleeve was inappropriate to do anything but look pretty under. The material was as glorious as her hair, like sunlight itself dripping down from the skies, and it would be a crime for it to be ruined.

Loki had a very different opinion. He grasped her by the wrist, ignoring a noise of restrained anger, and she held her breath as green bursts of magic spread over the fine clothes she donned.

Clint was ready to shoot an arrow at the mischief god on principle, but he realised that Loki was not being destructive; he was altering the material to fit it around her body more closely. He frowned when the pattern spread down her legs in a mimic of his own trousers, and murmured about consideration future appropriate wear. The woman spluttered when he finally stepped back, and stood as a golden echo of the prince before her with floral, shining patterns down her limbs. Loki ignored her protests which demanded he cease the magic he had cast upon her, and his successful smirk shrank as he considered her hair.

“Brother, do not,” Thor warned him suddenly, and his voice was like a gunshot in the silence. Loki’s head turned quickly, and the Avengers had all moved forward in step with the god, because they were hyperaware that this was Loki and any situation could go south in a microsecond.

The woman had turned when Loki had, but upon seeing nothing she glared again at the prince who, from her perspective, was frowning at thin air. Loki in turn was watching his invisible brother bite his lip, trying not to speak, whilst the younger Thor walked back over to him, loudly congratulating Loki on this throw.

“Perhaps you will one day beat me,” he suggested, and then he turned to the woman and her spar-ready outfit. “What is this?”

“I will not cave to this,” she told Loki, then pointed to Thor. “No, it is better the princes train against one another. What need have you of a foolish girl?”

“Better the foolish girl drop her pretence.” Loki replied lowly, whilst Thor frowned at them both.

“Does she wish to join us?”

“Yes,” Loki tried to say, but didn’t anticipate how adamant and loud the lady would be, her own refusal drowning him out completely: “ _No_.”

He grabbed her by the hair when she went to storm away, but it was not meant any more cruelly than his and Thor’s throwing competition. Both versions of the blond prince said, “Loki,” in warning. Both stepped forward, and both stopped when one realised and the other remembered that Loki meant no harm. He rolled the magnificent strands of spun gold between his fingers with contemplation, whilst the girl beneath his touch stood frozen. Thor, both of him, appraised the situation with care.

“May I?” Loki asked, and the girl huffed in contempt. She didn’t, however, say no. Loki would grow used to the suspicions others laid upon him, and was already taking silences for confirmations, aware that no one would dare openly agree for fear of the consequences.

Whilst he was occupied, clever fingers concerned with twisting and tying the long hair away from where it could catch, the Avengers pulled at Thor’s biceps until they were almost sure Loki would not be able to eavesdrop.

“Okay, talk,” Tony demanded, face pale beneath the shadow of his raised mask. He looked like he hadn’t slept for the entire last week; a real possibility when the inventor had unresolved issues pouring from every crevice. He no longer had patience to speak of, though it was his sharp attitude and not his edginess which infected unease among his teammates.

“That is Sif,” Thor informed them softly, and there was either something caught in his eye or he had an inkling of what was soon to happen. Natasha’s attentions had turned to him exclusively, whilst Clint was only seconds behind on the uptake. Steve was a soldier, trained to be hyper-aware of the people he worked with, so he clued in almost as fast.

“You know.” Natasha said decisively and Thor’s jaw moved. He looked to be contemplating lying, feigning ignorance, but that wasn’t how it worked in the Avengers. Eventually everyone got found out.

“I think I understand when we are,” he admitted, and worry had his voice louder than they had all unanimously agreed to be. “I remember this summer.” If Loki heard him he didn’t reply, consumed in the twisting of Sif’s lengthy, brilliant locks. Clint felt his stomach drop.

“I assume it didn’t turn out well,” Tony said sourly, though he tried to hide it behind a forced expression that stretched the tired skin around his eyes. Thor’s own face was tinged with nostalgia, whilst his following words were incongruously ominous to the content.

“I believe you will see.”

“Can we skip the scary part and end on the happy note?” Clint interrupted. “He doesn’t _die_ or anything, right?”

“Not that I know of,” Thor admitted, though had trouble meeting their eye. Tony breathed out slowly and pretended he didn’t. Bruce ran a hand down his face. Natasha was still focusing on Sif, and suddenly Clint recognised her – her hair had been dark when she had visited Avenger’s tower, and her stance a lot more open. Her entire physique was different, her body language and her own sense of self broadening her shoulders and making her seem bigger. Not that she was a small woman, but she had stood her own against the big men around her, whilst here… here she was frozen still with terror, perhaps, under Loki’s gentle hands. She watched Thor, she watched the empty training grounds, she watched the hammer on the floor. She looked small.

Clint said, “She _is_ jealous. Which of you did she have a crush on? Stupid question. It was you, wasn’t it, blondie?”

“No,” Thor denounced quickly, though that seemed sad too. “Although my father oftentimes wished for that. A woman such as Sif may have restrained the wildness that festered for so long within me, or even the anarchy that brew in the breast of my brother. Had she chose either of us, we both would have turned out better people.”

“Why didn’t she? Prince of Asgard, not a bad catch.” Cap said, eyebrow raised.

Thor smiled, only a little strained. “I believe you will see that, too.” Everything he said was toeing the line between creepy and fateful, and Clint decided then and there he didn’t like the way this trip was shaping up.

“Something bad is going to happen,” he told the group, and Thor didn’t move to dispute him.

Thor confided softly, “This is before Angrboða.” And it showed, because Loki was as clear-faced as he had been when they had seen him in the Norwegian forest, and it showed in Tony’s face as well, who was so painfully conflicted that it made Clint want to take Natasha’s hand.

The god in question was finally done with the tight knot he had painstakingly tucked Sif’s hair into. It sat at the base of her neck and wouldn’t shift with any movement, no matter how violent or sudden with battle, pinned with Loki’s magic. It was practical, it was more complicated than it looked, and the young version of Thor crowed with impatience as the two finally stepped forward and moved into a battle stance.

Sif maintained her front that she did not wish to retract from their training time, even as Loki gestured at the weapons available on a far wall and requested that she chose what she wanted to start with. She had no experience, had never wrapped her hand around anything more than a table knife or a sewing needle, and so harked, “This is not a lady’s place.”

Loki said, angrily now, “You were only here to observe us. You wished to learn, even if it only meant vicariously. You wanted to know our weaknesses. I believe that nothing is ever learnt without practical experience. Books and observation are the groundwork, and now it is time to move your education forward.”

“I am not a warrior-“

“No.” Loki said.

Thor agreed, “Not yet!”

The blond stepped back as the green-eyed brother stepped forward, and Sif followed him into the centre of the ring. The Avengers sat where Sif had been forced to vacate, but they saw now that she was starting to smile, and her eagerness to lash out was not out of fear but anticipation.

Loki was the first person to face against her, and the first person to win in a fight against her. She scowled as he took her weapon from her, but her face eased and became more serious as he turned that victory into a lesson; he was the also the first to help instruct, to correct her handle on the knife she had chosen to flick at him, and to show her the spots on his own body she had to aim for to land a killing blow.

Younger Thor, from the side-lines of those first few battles, called out his own hints of where Loki’s stance was weak, or which side he favoured in a lunge. Loki shouted back in protest, but never took his brother’s blatant show of favouritism as anything other than the friendly joke it was.

“What of nepotism?” He asked, when Sif was heaving for breath and he had worked up a light sheen over his forehead. The sun was beginning to grow hot above them, and their light clothes were a lot more suited for it than even Clint’s sleeveless uniform.

As they ducked and weaved and yelled at each other, Sif was the jewel of a dragon’s hoard. She flickered in and out of shadows, and almost hit Loki only because he became stunned at the way her hair shimmered. Every time she would smile, flushed with success, and Clint felt his knees go weak.

It was Queen Frigga, dressed in blues and gold that matched Sif’s hair, who finally interrupted the impromptu lesson. The fight died down quickly, Loki mid-swing when Sif got distracted, forcing the young Thor to intervene and splinter the vambrace on his arm. Neither prince bore it any mind as they spun to face their mother. Thor’s face was as conniving as Loki’s as they flanked either side of the Lady Sif, as if protecting her. Or presenting her.

Frigga frowned for a long moment, assessing the situation and the make-shift clothes Loki had transfigured, before she said blandly, “It is time for breakfast. Afterwards I would advise you all begin preparations for this evening.” She added nothing more, bar another steady, blank look at her boys and the woman they were standing either side of. Sif was red with embarrassment, shaking as she glared accusingly at the brothers who seemed so alike in that moment, grins equally as shit-eating.

“What’s this evening?” Cap asked in the wake of Frigga’s fading footsteps.

“There was a gathering at my father’s hall to celebrate the arrival of guests from Vanaheim.” The older version of Thor answered, and was interrupted by Sif’s refusal to restart any faux training the brothers had bullied her into.

“I cannot go like this,” She exclaimed, horrified when Loki adamantly refused to return her gown to how it once had been. “I shall be laughed out of the feast!”

“You intend to be a warrior, do you not?”

“People will _talk_ -”

“Of your intention to become a warrior!” Thor said loudly, apparently ignorant of the problems. There was something clever, however, in the flickering of his eyes. He looked to his brother, who nodded minutely back. There was a subtle communication that the Avengers missed, a shift of their brows that was more complicated than it seemed, and with it the old Thor hunched over, clasping his hands together tightly.

Sif said, “It is the royalty of Vanaheim! What if I were meet a lord; a man I may decide to marry? It is not proper to present myself as-“

“Yourself?” Loki said, frowning at her clothes. “No, no, you’re right.” He stepped forward, putting one hand on the sleeve of her forearm, and the other absently reached up to tuck a strand of gold behind her ear. He smiled at it, as transfixed as anyone would be, and then shook himself free of his distraction. He pointed to the clothing, tutted. As Sif began to look relieved, and as young, brash Thor started to make a whining noise at the back of his throat, Loki concluded: “We must straight to the market.”

Sounding a great _hurrah_ , Thor happily agreed to accompany her. “A warrior would never wear something so delicate. We must get you in leathers and armour.”

“No!” Sif exclaimed, whilst the brothers said: “Yes!”

“Do not argue with us, Lady Sif,” Thor insisted, taking her by the upper arm and leading her the way Queen Frigga had walked – presumably towards the dining hall.

Loki trailed behind them and spared a glance and gesture for the Avengers, before pressing his finger to his lips, sharing a conspiratorial wink. Despite the fact he was a SHIELD trained assassin, there was something about being covert alongside the God of Lies that sent a thrill down Clint’s spine. He had been on missions that could have killed him had he wrong-footed (which he often did), and yet he had never felt the same childish glee he experienced tip-toeing down the halls of Asgard, despite the fact there was no danger to make him feel this threatened.

Up ahead, Thor and Sif were arguing, whilst the Avenger’s own Thor was talking lowly to Natasha. Clint slid closer, but was distracted by Tony. Bruce had the inventor in a parody of the two leading the group, his arm securely around Iron Man’s bicep. His fingers did not reach even half way around the circumference, and Tony would not be able to feel it, but it made a nice picture; they were each other’s grounding.

Bruce was often so quiet that he was easy to overlook. Appraising him now, Clint valued the fact he was still small and brunet, despite his perturbed gait. Thor, their version, was not resting easy despite the beautiful day and the sweet argument drifting down from ahead. Bruce was receptive to the fact that wrestling answers out of Thor was like grappling with the Hulk in a room full of glass figurines – everything was far too delicate to handle any roughhousing. Even indirect bumps could resonate, make things shatter. Thor was not having the easiest few months of his life, revisiting all of his brother’s worst and best moments in contrast. Bruce was empathetic. Bruce was as twitchy as Thor.

Tony was upset. Tony needed Bruce. Bruce needed Tony. Clint stepped away.

He was an observer. He was the information sniper, rather than Natasha’s scalpel. He watched, he assessed, he shot things less often than he’d like. If he could solve his friends’ emotions with an array of trick arrows he’d make sure the world was a better place.

Cap was standing, as had become normal, by Natasha. What had drawn them together was to do with the Winter Soldier _thing_ , but Clint was letting it be. He found that, strange though it was, the friendship suited them both. He stepped back from that too.

He focused, instead, on the conversation between the three time-congruent Asgardians. They were still arguing about clothing.

Loki said, “Would you not rather the man you insist you’ll meet to see you for who you are rather than who you pretend to be?

Sif huffed, a step away from laughter but twice as unpleasant. She said, joking only in tone of voice, “What of you? Do you not expect to find a potential spouse? Would you like _them_ to see you for yourself?”

“No,” the brothers said in unison, before Thor began to chortle.

“Loki, married? I would celebrate the day as much as a coronation! No,” he answered her former query. “Our parents do not expect us to marry when the realms remain untouched and our story only just begun. Surely yours too must think the same-“ But he teetered off as Sif fell silent, and both the princes realised that her parents did indeed expect of her what theirs did not of them.

“Thor shall take you.” Loki exclaimed suddenly, startling not just his brother and Sif. The God of Mischief nodded as his company spluttered. “Do you wish to be married, Lady?”

Sif shook her head hesitantly, aware now of Loki’s sly train of thoughts. Thor rolled his eyes in accordance, but found himself agreeing with his brother.

“’Tis best that it is the two of us. You have never been fond of Loki, after all.”

“It is not that I am not _fond_ -“ She tried to argue but neither brother believed her airy tone, so it was dropped and replaced with truth. “It is just that I am wary of him.”

“It will make for a better deception,” Thor insisted, letting free her arm just to hold out his hand. When she took it trustingly, he concluded, “Though I will not let go of you until we find you more suitable garb.”

Sif immediately tried to pull away again, but the combination of Thor’s strength and a small application of magic meant that they were stuck until Thor and Loki both had been appeased.

The stench of food, meats and fruits and a sneaking peek of a burdened table in the approaching room made Clint’s stomach grumble and Loki stop dead in his tracks.

“If you’ll excuse me,” he said when his brother looked back. “I have left a guard in the training ring.”

When they were alone, Loki finally smiled broadly at the Avengers. His expression faltered when Tony clinked forward. He looked grim as he approached his future boyfriend, or lover, or T’hy’la for all Clint cared; whatever seemed weird and romantic enough to suit their outstandingly unhealthy relationship.

“Don’t we get breakfast?” Clint mused to the empty air as the young prince took a step back, simultaneously glaring and squaring his shoulders. He was shining in the rays of sunlight that peaked through the towering columns, gleaming with perspiration from the morning exertions, and his gaze was heavy, dangerous. He was young enough to remember the bad first meeting, and though he was welcoming he would be quicker to do damage than his later incarnations.

Tony stopped, took a breath, seemingly frustrated. It was unclear why until he ran an armoured hand over his face and accused, “This is messing with my schedule. You said you hadn’t seen us since the horse thing.”

“Tony,” Bruce groaned, and it took a moment for the MIT valedictorian to catch up.

“Damn,” he announced at the same time Loki, eyebrows creased and lips thin as he interpreted what Tony meant, said, “I haven’t.”

Tony shook a finger. “No, I know. Shit, no, I guess I need to explain it now. Our next meeting has been and gone, done and dusted, and you said in the future which is actually in the past but is _actually_ in the future, that you haven’t seen us since we officially met with scary horse and scary horse junior. I guess you have the title ‘God of Lies’ for a reason, huh?”

“Perhaps I earned it through foolish humans restricting my freewill.” Loki replied with a sharp smile. Clint barked out a laugh whilst Tony looked about ready to hand in his genius card.

“Yeah, we’ve had this conversation too.”

“Then you’ll know how it ends.”

“I’m an idiot… at times, I get it. How come I’ve already been through this with you before and you’re still more prepared for it?”

Loki raised his eyebrows, cocked a corner of his mouth. Tony faltered, and Loki stared. Clint was there, as usual, to save the day.

“So, what’s this I hear about food?” And as usual, Clint served only to distract rather than rescue.

Tony moved away and Thor stepped forward, Cap matching him. Steve, business as usual, opened with: “Is this party tonight going to be dangerous?”

“No more than can be reasonably expected. We of Asgard are no more violent than they of Vanaheim, so any brawls should all be in good spirits.”

“At least that’s something,” Steve acknowledged, but shook his head anyway. “I don’t think we should risk it. It feels a lot like we’re stepping into a trap.”

Natasha nodded, standing at Cap’s side resolutely, unquestioningly. “We could set up surveillance, but in a palace this big and with only a few hours – _and_ with unknown guests and only six of us to watch out for him… it’s not feasible.”

“It’s only a party.” Loki laughed. “I am not unable to defend myself. Though I promise you there will be no threats from Vanaheim. We are not at war with their people. In fact, tonight may herald long-term peace.”

“Better safe than sorry-“ Steve tried to insist, but Thor cut across him.

“He can’t miss it.”

“No, I can’t. The King and Queen expect me.” Loki said, but his smile proved his was considering a bit of teenage-esque rebellion; the Asgardian Prince version to sneaking out the window. Thor, however, cut him short.

“No! No, you cannot! Father will have your hide as soon as mother is done with you.” His red cape billowed around the two of them as Loki suspiciously analysed his face; not quite trusting yet, but if anyone was going to convince him then it was his brother, with his big blue eyes and face sincere enough to give Cap a run for his money. Clint wasn’t sure what Thor was trying to communicate but it seemed important.

“Perhaps you should come back at a later date,” Loki suggested, not without hesitance. “You may prove to be a distraction if you remain.”

“I wish it worked like that-“ Tony said, in time to be drowned out by the non-noise of time displacement and the slow filtering of a rising din as the world settled around them. Or maybe that was just Clint. He knocked his ear twice to check.

They hadn’t actually moved, but the skies were darker, the air was miraculously cooler, and if it weren’t for the magic protecting them from unwanted eyes and unwelcome bodies, they’d be jostled by the swarm of people entering and exiting the banquet halls.

Thor announced, “Time has no concern over your understanding of its workings, Stark!” whilst Tony scowled and glared at Bruce who shrugged. Loki had since disappeared, but it was inevitable that the Avengers would find him again.

“So what’s the big deal with the party?” Clint asked the burning question, backed up by Tony who was scowling.

“And why did we get sent straight to where we wanted to be? For once?”

“Tonight is a turning point in my brother’s life, though he does not know it yet.”

“You still feeling like this is a trap, Cap?”

Steve nodded, and Tony nodded with him. “Well, then. Let’s find him. Captain’s orders.”

“Only if we’re in teams,” Steve belayed when Tony started to walk down one way and Clint prepared to turn the other. “If this is a trap we need to have each other’s backs. Keep in contact and be careful. Thor with Tony, Bruce with Clint, and me and Natasha.”

“Bruce, Clint and us will take the halls,” Natasha took over. “Thor’s got better knowledge of the web of corridors, so you two run through them. We’ll converge outside.”

They didn’t find Loki in the arching halls, which were writhing with activity and noise and dancing and laughter and more alcohol than Clint had before seen downed by any one person (including Thor), and nor could Iron Man and Thor spot him in the overflowing corridors. They double checked, that was their job, and Clint found a high-point to stare down at the crowds, just in case. He saw better from a distance than right there amid the sweaty, well-dressed masses.

Outside was a lot clearer and a breath of fresh air eased the heat building in Clint’s chest, silenced the ringing in his ears. They all shared a look, shook their heads, and tried not to be too worried as they spared a moment to admire the open gardens lit under the starlight of a thousand galaxies glinting overhead.

And, of course, there he was: a spot of blackness amid the rainbow blossoms. He was smiling gently as he overlooked the very same view. Tony was the first to move, a clink and a clunk and a great clash of sounds to ruin the moment, but Thor held him back and shook his head.

He gestured for quiet, but needn’t have bothered – there was a woman approaching with a smile like the moon’s crescent, and as Sif was beautiful like the day, she was beautiful like the night. Loki reached out to touch her, but stopped short at the blues of her dress. She sat on the edge of pavilion as Loki stood and gazed admiringly.

The Avengers had met her before.

“Sigyn,” Thor said needlessly, though the last Clint remembered of her was seeing her dragged by the hair from Loki’s rooms, beaten bloody and screaming. It was sickening to watch the two of them now, smiling like children, reaching out to hold hands like sharing a secret.

“I’m okay,” Tony shook off when Bruce sent him a _look_. Clint didn’t receive his very own Stark glare because Clint was a highly trained assassin and could be subtle when he wanted to be. “I get it, this was a long time ago.”

But that didn’t ease the fact it was happening right in front of them. It wasn’t like seeing an old sepia photograph of a lover’s past life, and even that wasn’t easy. Tony could reach out and touch him if he wanted to, could call over and stop the gooey love-eyes before they evolved into something more dangerous. But he didn’t. He handled it as well as he handled Loki meeting Angrboða.

“That’s cute,” Clint said awkwardly, addressing Thor. “When did they meet?”

“About an hour ago.”

“Seriously?” The archer replied. “Because then that’s weird. And a little nauseating.”

“And unexpected,” Thor agreed. “It was a shock when he announced their engagement.”

“Are you joking?” Tony spluttered. “He moved that quickly? Should I be expecting Loki on one knee next time I see him? I’m pretty sure I’ve spent more than an hour in his company.”

“That depends,” Thor answered pleasantly. “How would you respond if he did?”

Tony scowled whilst the group shared a ripple of mockery. It was a mistake; with that brief pause from worry they attracted attention. Somehow, and kudos to him, Loki managed to tear his eyes from whatever love-sick expression he was making, and matched Tony scowl for scowl. Standing as they were, gawking like he was some sideshow attraction, it was understandable that Loki did not want the Avengers hanging around. What Clint wouldn’t give for the crunch of popcorn, if only to alleviate the tight expression on Tony’s face.

The group were prepared for Loki’s ire, but not for Sigyn to follow his gaze, nor for her to meet Clint’s eye with dawning confusion.

“Oh shit, back up,” he said, tugging at Natasha and Bruce and ushering them all back into the stream of people moving between the halls.

“Did she see us?” Bruce gaped, whilst Tony asked much to the same extent but with a more colourful array of words.

“I do not understand,” Thor returned. “Surely she can’t have. She is not of magic.”

“Apparently, she is,” Natasha hissed, ducking down amid the crowd when Loki and Sigyn followed them into the hall, quick on their tail. The woman was looking around, frowning, attempting to seek them out. Loki, however, distracted her by pointing to the far end of the hall where his parents were eating. She gripped him tighter, but they shared a moment that consisted of longing gazing and forgetting about their strange company, and Clint worked hard to keep his disgusted noises to himself.

Natasha glared at him. He shrugged. “It’s gross.”

“Repulsive,” Tony agreed solemnly, but he was bias. Steve glared at him, supporting Natasha one-hundred percent.

“Thor, what’s going to happen?” Cap asked when he spotted the younger God of Thunder come in through the east-side doors.

“Nothing bad,” Thor said, his eyes and attention elsewhere. “He will announce his intention to marry Sigyn to our parents and they shall in turn tell the hall.”

“We’ll get in closer, see if we can glean anything.” Natasha promised, grabbing Clint and pulling him away. Cap was focused on Thor, interested now in what had Thor’s mind otherwise occupied. Clint glanced back in time to see the group turn serious-faced and start to fan out to different parts of the hall, but Natasha had assigned a mission and he was a good agent when he wanted to be. He could occasionally follow orders.

By the time they’d waded through the crowds and found a good spot to eavesdrop without attracting Sigyn’s attention, Loki was already beaming at his parents with a strange glowing pride which Clint had never seen before on his cold, sharp face.

“Marriage?” Frigga replied to them, taken aback. Whilst Loki nodded eagerly, staring unabashedly down at the woman he was so immediately taken with, he did not see the strange look his mother shared with her husband. “Surely it is too soon to be talking of marriage.”

“Is it?” Loki said, surprised. Like he hadn’t considered a world where his parents might say no.

“Marriage is about more than love, Loki,” Odin replied gravely. “It is a responsibility to yourself, and to the Lady Sigyn. It is an act of complete devotion.”

“I am completely devoted,” he assured them. They remained frowning, unconvinced, but the couple didn’t falter either. Their knuckles became white with how tightly they clutched onto one another’s arms. Sigyn pressed a little closer to him, her hair as black as his, her eyes dark where his were light, but glinting with shared passion and determination.

“And what of you, Lady Sigyn of Vanaheim?” Odin asked, and Sigyn curtseyed as competently as she could without letting her grip on Loki loosen.

She said, “I adore your son, and I will commit completely to him and to your kingdom.”

In the face of her unwavering solemnity, heavy with strange syllables from Vanaheim and chiming with a fairness and grace that showed on her features, the king and queen had little cause to doubt her. Clint was taken aback with how strongly she had spoken, but not as much as he was still reeling from the ring of truth that had also chimed in _Loki’s_ words.

Especially since he knew how this would turn out.

Finally, Odin stood. It was slow, and the young couple took a step back as the god raised himself to full height. On a podium, high above the crowds, equal only to his wife, Odin was intimidating and magnificent. Since he first met them in Norway, possibly since the incident with the demon horse, Loki looked genuinely afraid.

But instead of smiting them where he stood, and it had seemed a very real possibility for a millisecond, he opened his arms wide and proclaimed the news to the entire hall. After a second of stunned silence, there was a delighted uproar and the couple were suddenly swarmed with attention, most especially from Loki’s un-informed golden-haired brother.

“What game is he playing?” Frigga asked under-breath. Clint didn’t hear it himself, but he was pretty good with lip reading. It was the most sensible thing Clint had not-heard all evening.

“Perhaps it is not as strange as it appears, my love,” the king of Asgard clutched her hand, pressed a kiss to it. “They make a handsome pair, and I have never seen Loki so amicable with another. Not even his brother, nor I. Not even you.”

Frigga looked again, and so did the two SHIELD spies watching from behind. The smiles Loki shared with Sigyn were mutual and soft, and Clint had to agree with Odin. He whispered to Natasha, “Either he’s in love, or he’s been hit with a spell.”

“Who’d want to hit Loki with a love spell?” Natasha replied.

“Tony.”

“I mean who in their right mind.” She reworded.

“This will be good for our realms,” Odin still tried to soothe his wife, who took her husband’s hand and nodded.

“We shall see.” She would be watching. She was rightly suspicious of her son’s motives. Clint decided he liked her. For all that she loved her son, she was wary of his abilities. She probably had a lot of experience in patience, being married to Odin. Clint had heard Thor’s stories and drawn his own conclusions from the nostalgia-tinged fairy-tales.

But then the din of congratulations dimmed, by degree at first but rapidly spreading, and Clint first spotted Iron Man and the billowing cape of their own Thor as they anxiously rushed through the newly-opened south door. The silence had spread because of Sif, who had entered the room unannounced. She was beautiful and shimmering with the candlelight, like fire caught in pins and plaits, donned in leather and metal and a great sword strapped across her back. For all that she looked dangerous and ready to crush the unworthy under her boots, she stunned the audience with her magnificence. She likely shocked the people around her – citizens she knew and royalty she had befriended – and more than that; with a breath she had completely turned the Asgardian norms upon their heads. Loki was sometimes accused of taking a woman’s trade with his sorcery, but in this moment he was still only touching on the basics where Sif was grabbing the traditional gender roles by the horns and tearing them straight off the bull. Clint felt himself grinning.

There was a mighty cheer from young Thor, who stood by the newly engaged couple, and Clint caught Loki wincing away from the noise – and the sudden plethora which crashed across the room with it – like he would a punch to the face.

He tugged Sigyn closer, though she was smiling. Loki was not. Clint and Natasha shared an expression and moved back to where their team were shifting on their feet.

“We tried to stop her but we couldn’t figure out how to communicate,” Cap said, shaking his head.

“What did you want her to do? She kinda came out of the closet of antiquated Asgardian-standards, if you follow me. And it was awesome. She actually seems to have met a really good reception for it. Potentially sparked a revolution. Is that the problem?”

“No, Loki’s the problem.”

“As usual.” Natasha inserted, completely unsurprised. “What’s going to happen?”

“He’s going to do something terrible.” Thor replied.

“To Sif? Now? In front of all these people?”

“No, but it will be tonight. I don’t know when, exactly, but we need to stop him.”

“How do we get near him?” Tony asked pragmatically. “He’s wrapped around his _fiancée_ and unless we’re willing to explain to her what’s happening and potentially get us all into trouble then there’s not a lot we can do.”

“We can’t just stand-by and watch!” Thor growled, and Tony threw up his hands.

“I’m not saying we let Loki be his crazy-shit self, thunder-cloud, but we’ve got to get him alone.”

“I fear he will not be until he finds Sif.”

“Then how about we wait for her? Where does she live?”

“We’re not going to stalk an Asgardian Shield-Maiden,” Cap tried to argue, but Tony’s reasoning was more persuasive: “Do you want to reveal yourself in front of someone who may potentially – sensibly – overreact in a hall full of people? _Including_ the king of gods who could probably kill us even without seeing us. That is, if Loki doesn’t get to us first.”

“It is the easiest way,” Thor agreed. “He will likely find her later this evening.”

“And we have the gift of hindsight.” Natasha agreed.

“Technically isn’t it foresight from here-“

“Tony,” Cap interrupted. “Just listen to us for five minutes.”

Tony saluted, but it was as petulant as ever. Cap huffed. Ignored him.

They began by travelling upwards, because Sif was a Lady and the palace was too large for a family of four. There was a suite that was located high, but not as high as the rooms of the royals, that Thor slipped them into and settled them down outside on the balcony.

It was never truly dark in Asgard thanks to the millions of glinting lights overhead. Bruce wondered aloud where Earth was, and Thor pointed. He smiled whilst an astrology discussion revved into life, settling back with Clint who elected to stay out of it.

“How bad is bad?” The archer asked, counting his arrows and checking his tricks. He didn’t look away from his weapon maintenance as Thor sucked in a breath, stared out to the end of the world. “So it’s that bad.”

“It’s not the worst thing he’s ever done.” Thor admitted. “He’s already been in trouble, what with the builder and Svaðilfari.”

“The demon horse?”

Thor hummed agreeably, leaned on the stone railing.

“He’s going to be okay though, right?”

“I don’t know. I was not there.”

Clint reached out to pat his shoulder companionably. He said, “We’re all shit sometimes. Especially brothers.”

“What of your brother?”

“Yeah, he’s especially shit. Makes even Loki look good.”

“I doubt that.”

“I guess he _didn’t_ try to overthrow the world, but he can hardly find two pennies to rub together, never mind an army. If he _could_ , though…”

“I still believe that you are exaggerating.”

“You haven’t met him.”

“And you haven’t seen Loki’s worst.”

This, at least, stopped Clint further from talking about his brother. “What was New York, then?”

“It could be argued that it was him at his nastiest,” Thor nodded, but his heart wasn’t in it. “But I have seen my brother in great distress, and in great agony. When you love someone, even their evil pales against their pain.”

And Clint knew that well enough. Nodding, he told him, “He’s alright, your brother. Sometimes. Not often. Occasionally. When the mood strikes him.”

There was a sudden rustling in the corridor, muffled words and a sudden yelp, followed by a crash against the outside of the door to Sif’s rooms, interrupting the conversations. They ducked low, tried to keep to the shadows, fell almost silent. Thor was the only noise, close to Clint’s ear as he sighed: “Tonight is not one of those moods.”

Clint was hyper aware of the noises Sif is making, animalistic and outraged and in pain, whilst Loki was heavy breathing and the swipe of boots across the floor. The were shadows hiding in the darkened room, and it’s only when the starlight echoes off Sif’s gold hair silver that they realise he had her by the scalp.

Thor and Cap led the storm as they rained in on the situation, spilling white light across the shadows as the galaxies swirl.

“Let her go, brother,” Thor demanded. Sif was digging her nails into Loki’s wrists, but she couldn’t struggle when he had her hair clutched in his fists, psychosis in his eyes. Clint hadn’t seen that same insanity since he first burst from the Tesseract’s portal.

There was a glint of metal, a slip of a blade, and he shook his head at the Avengers as he threatened them by threatening her.

Thor roared, “Loki, you need to stop this! This is madness!”

Loki was still tossing his head back and forth, possessed with his rage. But his voice was soft at first, rising with his words. “What is madness is that my bride was overlooked for this wretch of a woman who wishes to be a fighter! I will not allow it!”

“What has overcome you, brother? This is not like you.”

“Magic?” Clint suggested, as he had with Natasha. This time he was serious. “A love spell or something?”

Loki howled in outrage. Thor jerked in front of the rest of the team, an incredibly large shield against whatever crazy was infecting Loki’s higher functions. Clint knew he meant it protectively, but Clint was also well versed in a hyper heroic Thor. He hadn’t always been so selfless.

Loki, therefore, who knew his brother as a much louder, self-absorbed god, misinterpreted his actions as hostile.

“You can threaten me all you like, Thor, but I will not forgive this! Not until all of Asgard recognises my wife-to-be as more beautiful than her!”

“Loki, stop!” Sif gasped, but he only tugged harder on her scalp, pressed the blade closer against her neck. “I did not mean to upset you or Lady Sigyn! I swear on the All-Father!” He paid her no mind, staring wildly at his brother, at the Avengers, at Tony.

“Loki,” Tony said when those piercing eyes settled on him. He held out his hands, attempting to placate. Loki flinched. Tony had repulsors in his palms. He put down his hands. “You’re alright, you can let the girl go.”

“What is it about you, Tony Stark?” Loki spat. “You look at me so strangely.”

“You make him sad,” Natasha said calmly when Tony’s mouth moved but nothing came out.

“I did nothing to him.”

“Not yet.” Clint acknowledged carelessly, rounding Loki’s attention to him. He dragged Sif with him, and Clint hissed empathetically.

“ _Not yet_ ,” The god mocked, syllables a sharp draw across his teeth. “You all know so much about me, but you keep it from me. Tell me brother, do you see this woman in the future, or is tonight her end?”

Sif sucked in a breath when the blade drew blood, but they could see Loki’s hands shake and it wasn’t from the night air. It wasn’t anger. It was something a lot more fragile than that.

Thor took a step forward, but Loki clutched at Sif tighter – a mockery of how he held Sigyn so desperately earlier that evening. He warned Thor away, snarling like an animal and backing towards the open door.

He looked down at Sif, who strained her neck to seethe hatefully upwards. Her disgust, her fury, was refreshing in the face of the Avengers’ blind panic. They all knew Loki too well, even liked him, loved him sometimes, but like this he was the picture image of the monster that had invaded their home world only a few short years before.

He said to her, “What does a woman who wishes to be a warrior need with hair like this? Do you plan to dazzle them with it? It suits you ill, Lady Sif. It would suit my wife better.”

“Don’t!” Thor exclaimed, but it was too late. The knife had moved with a flick of his wrist, and although her throat was spared, her hair was shorn. Loki’s skill with a knife was unparalleled, even at this age, and he had the golden strands clutched between his shivering fist as Sif screamed in outrage and Thor tackled his brother to the ground.

Loki cackled like a maniac, unhinged and wild-eyed, and he shook the hair in his hand joyfully. He slithered out from under Thor’s grasp, but not without effort. He became pinned under Mjölnir as he tried to scramble up.

When Thor reached to take back what Loki had stolen, the young god stretched his arm as far as it would go, reaching out towards the balcony, and let go.

The hair tumbled in the wind, the altitude catching the gold and streaming it away before Thor could grab at it, and it travelled like streams of dust through the night sky. Upside down, immobilised under the weight of his own unworthiness, Loki laughed and laughed.

Guards came eventually, and he had grown silent and withdrawn and had not spoken when Thor tried to engage him. There was something exhausted about him, but it was hard to feel sympathy when the Avengers had witnessed a psychotic break.

When he was gone from the room, Bruce broke the silence with: “Your brother has had issues for a long, long time.”

“I didn’t realise how long,” Thor replied, and there was silence again. He crashed down to where Sif, shocked and fuming, had leaned against a wall. She could not see them, but Thor needed to know he was there for her. Her hair was choppy around her ears, ugly and a visual reminder of Loki’s cruelty. Even its sheen had distorted, looking dirty in her shadowy perch.

“I think I get it,” Clint said, standing in Loki’s trail of destruction. “New York was not his worst. Perhaps it was impressive in body count, but not really surprising. _That_ on the other hand… I didn’t see that one coming.”

“Was he serious?” Tony said from the floor, where he had gathered a handful of what they could find of Sif’s beautiful golden hair. “The whole _mirror, mirror_ routine? Who is the fairest of them all?”

“I don’t understand that reference,” Thor admitted. “But he seems to have been offended by the attention paid to Sif this evening.”

Clint nodded, as confused as the blond was. “Which is weird, because actually last time I saw them they beat each other up and then Loki died of internal bleeding.”

“That was Tony’s fault, not Sigyn’s,” Thor hastened to remind them.

Tony harked, “Sure, blame the perishable mortal. I won’t be around in sixty years to care anyway. See who’s laughing then.”

“At least he didn’t kill her,” Natasha said to Thor, ever the optimist. Sif didn’t hear her, glaring out the open window and processing what she had seen with a lethargic, steady pace. What she had seen, the Avengers realised, was Loki screaming at empty air. What she had seen was Loki tossed around and losing a battle he was fighting against no one. What she had seen was Loki terrifying and mad and dangerous. And she was angry.

When she stood up and left the room no one tried to stop her, even when Thor’s gaze was miserable as he watched after her.

Clint said, “Why do I feel like this can only get worse?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> LOVE IS AN OPEN DOOOOOORRRRR
> 
> This chapter was a MONSTER of a thing, so it's been split in two! The second part will be up soon. For reals. Not my soon, which is a really hideously long time, I mean ACTUALLY soon. I'll keep [my blog](http://www.spaceleviathan.tumblr.com) updated. Feel free to go there and yell at me if I take too long.


	13. 5 - Travelling

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> YOOO look at me all speedy with the updates. This was already half-written though, so.

It did only get worse. They hardly had time to close their eyes and breathe before they blinked back to reality and found that the world had shifted around them again. It no longer unsettled them, though Clint still disliked the motion. It made him feel disjointed, dissociated a step more from reality, and he reached for his quiver and counted his arrows in an unconscious motion. He saw Natasha running her hands over her wrists; an assassin’s comfort lay with the nearest weapon.

They were back in the hall of Asgard, and like it had been at the party, there were a mass of bodies were pressed tightly together, all straining forwards. The Avengers cut an uninterrupted path through the masses, finding a view of Odin’s throne and the deliberately empty space before it.

The God of Gods himself was sitting quiet, contemplative, with his staff in hand and his helmet masking his eyes. By his side stood younger-Thor and Sif. It must have been the day after Loki had attacked her, Clint mused; she was still dressed in the clothes she'd been wearing when Loki set a knife to her hair.

She hadn’t slept any more than they had, and her face was murderous. She had been assaulted, and the perpetrator was standing in the empty space in front of the throne, several steps lower, shackled. It was not the first time Asgard had seen Loki set before his father, and it would not be the last time they saw him in chains.

The son stood passive and cold in front of his King and faced the accusations. He didn’t deny anything, hardly bothered to shrug in his own defence. He didn’t plead for himself or try to insist on any regrets. He hardly looked to Sif at all.

His eyes met Clint’s once, and his lips twitched. Clint shook his head, and was glad to see the expression drop. Loki had no friends here, and he had to realise what he’d done.

He faltered only when his mother stepped forward. It didn’t escape Clint’s notice that her clothes were the same colours as Sif’s – a wordless show of support that made Loki see his actions in a new light; as if it had been personal to Frigga. As if Loki had attacked his own mother.

What wasn’t deliberate, and had Clint had to give himself a second to process it, was how Frigga’s hair echoed the careful way Loki had wrapped Sif’s the day before. Loki had thought of his mother as he’d gently braided and tended to Sif, and what had changed in that time between a boy echoing the twist of his mother’s hair so lovingly into another’s, and then tearing it off and tossing it so cruelly to the wind?

Sigyn. Sigyn. There was something about Sigyn.

Frigga said, “Perhaps this union is not appropriate for you both.”

It was like a trigger, like throwing a switch. Loki forced the guards to seize his shoulders as he started forward, his voice a racket of protests and fury, suddenly loud and dangerous and Sif took a step backwards.

“Do not take me from Sigyn!” He screamed, struggling against the two burly Asgardians holding him back. His hair covered his eyes, his voice was breaking. There was something seriously wrong with this picture, but Clint didn’t understand sorcery well enough to speculate.

Odin slammed his spear upon the floor, and Loki, seemingly against his own will, fell as silent as the rest of the hall. Here followed his punishment: “You will collect every last strand, else find hair of equal value and beauty. You may not steal, or lie, or trick your way through this journey, and if you fail...” There was a finality, a regret, but this was an unforgivable act of violent. Odin offered him redemption, but he would have to suffer for it. If he failed, what was there to say that the violence would not return or increase?

Odin couldn’t know that at this point there wasn’t much he could do to save his son from that slippery slope.

Clint was suddenly angry, not just at Loki but at everyone around him. Loki had been wrong to do what he had done, but no one had stopped to question _why_. The trickster had given his reasons before he had cut Sif’s hair from her head, very nearly cutting her throat instead, but no matter how many times Clint ran them through his mind they still didn’t make sense.

The Loki he was coming to know so well had married Angrboða, a woman well-hailed for her tenacity, her ferociousness. Not for her looks. Loki might value a flair for the dramatic, but he’d given no indication that beauty mattered. Not enough to almost kill someone for it anyway.

But then, Loki had killed people for less. And maybe Clint was fooling himself when he forgot that.

Loki was crazy, and it apparently stemmed from so long ago that his attack on New York must have seemed like a logical progression. Attack Sif today, and several hundred years down the line try for genocide.

Frigga approached her son a step at a time, quietly and patiently. She didn’t reach out to comfort him, nor even to express forgiveness. “You will fix this, Loki.” She said, and it was somehow worse than anything Odin could have condemned him to.

When she touched him gently, fingers to his shoulder, his breath caught in his throat. There was a glow of green and gold magic before he started to rip at the collar of his robes. His bare shoulder blade faced the hall, now burning with patterns of the restrictive magic he would one day persuade Angrboða to break.

“You will _fix_ this.” His mother repeated, stepping back, leaving Loki staring dumb-struck. 

“This is wrong,” Tony spoke, but like Clint his unease wasn’t born of injustice (because really, if anyone needed a long, difficult solo journey to chill the fuck out, it was Loki) but of confusion. “We’re missing something bigger.”

“Like the invisible deity that’s throwing us through time?” Clint asked. “Or the weird magical barrier which means we’re invisible? How about the strange criss-cross pattern through Loki’s best hits?”

“You think they’re interrelated?” Bruce wondered. “What’s happening to us and what’s happening to Loki?”

“Since when _aren’t_ they?” The archer replied bitterly. He watched the crowd part as Loki was led away. “If it’s not us directly affecting stuff, then it’s something about the magic or the freaking butterfly effect that we have on history. Stark could have stepped on a bug in his big clunky suit and now Loki’s gone nuts and it’s our fault.”

“I’ve not seen him like that often,” Thor admitted, thinking back to Sif’s room, then to Loki’s frantic screaming when the relationship with his newly-found fiancée had been threatened. He came to his own conclusions, and they matched Clint’s almost directly: “Sigyn.”

“Where is she?” Natasha asked. She hadn’t been at the trial, nor had they seen her anywhere near Sif’s rooms.

“It cannot be Sigyn,” Thor tried to argue as they started to track after Loki. He was adamant. “She is a noble woman.”

“Hate to bring it up _again_ but that noble woman beat the shit out of her noble husband, and vice versa. So what do you know about your brother, really?” Clint said, more nastily than he had intended. “This jaunt across time seems to have been as enlightening for you as it is for us!”

“Whoa, time-out,” Tony started, clanking his hands together, but was drowned out by Natasha and Cap quickly pulling Clint and Thor away from each other. Clint harboured a real fear that Natasha was going to hurt him, and ended up surprised when Dr Banner, of all people, spoke in his defence.

“I’m not sure how much I like that there are long periods of time that you didn’t know what he was up to,” Bruce interjected. Thor scowled at them both.

“That basis covers a great majority of my brother’s life. I am not his guardian, nor would I wish to keep him, even when knowing what great cruelty befalls him or is unleashed by him. I love him, but he was impossible; as unruly and restless as I. He would have proved himself more evil than he has shown even in recent years had I tried to contain him.”

“Alright, alright, we’re not blaming anyone,” Tony said, though the accountability was not as far from his tone as he made out. He was standing closer to Clint than to Thor, and that was a small victory in itself.

“Can we not get into this here,” Cap said wearily. “If we want to figure out what to do next then we should find Loki.”

“And what then, exactly?” Natasha inserted, her voice softer and graver. “We haven’t been able to help him thus far.”

“We can try.” And that was Steve’s whole bit. _Maybe we can’t stop an alien invasion, but that’s not going to stop me. Maybe we can’t stop HYDRA but whining won’t help. Maybe we can’t save Loki, but_ we can try.

Clint sometimes hated Steve’s ability to simultaneously guilt trip and pep talk people into doing what he wanted. And what he wanted was for everyone to calm down.

“What’s wrong, Clint?” he said instead, as the archer shook Natasha from his arm.

“Nothing,” he said, as she went to stand by Cap. “No, actually, I know we’re all thinking it so I’m going to say it: Thor’s an unreliable narrator, Loki’s batshit crazy and we’re chasing him across the universe for _no good reason_. We _know_ he’s going to be okay, at least until the _second_ alien encounter Earth went through in _two years_ which is _his_ fault, so anything we do is completely irrelevant. We’re being played, and I don’t like the fact I can’t shoot the thing that has control over my entire existence.”

“We’ll figure it out.”

“We haven’t yet! Not even Loki knows a damn thing! What is the _point_ of all this? It’s just a game. I don’t know if it’s Thor being targeted and we’re just along for the ride, or if this is some fucked up way of hurting us, but it’s working and I should not give a shit about Loki but I _do_. And that pisses me off.”

Clint ran a hand down his face in the resulting silence, ringing and shocked, and he didn’t meet anyone’s eyes. He looked to the sky, then to the sprawl of the godly city.

Tony let out a long, low whistle. “Have you been holding that in for a while, beakbrain?”

“Shut up, Stark. Don’t-” he said, when Natasha reached out for him. “I’m okay. Let’s… let’s just go make sure he hasn’t wound up in a ditch some place.”

Loki’s chains had been taken from his wrists and were abandoned outside the palace. They found the man himself at the Bifrost, below him the churning sea. If he fell, it would drag him over the edge of the world. But he wasn’t looking down – he was looking up.

“Do you get almost executed for all the girls?” Tony joked weakly, the entire group still strangely quiet and awkward in the wake of Clint’s outburst, hitting snide when he missed humour. Loki scowled whilst Clint hung back, trying to suppress the growing warmth of embarrassment.

“Me and Clint were just having an interesting discussion, in which I learned he needed to seriously lighten up, but he raised a few good points.” Tony tried again. “You don’t think this is something to do with Sigyn, do you? And I don’t mean your little moment of madness last night, that was _everything_ to do with Sigyn-“

“You mean your time-travel problem? Sigyn is not of magic.”

“We think she’s hiding something, at least.” Thor informed him. “She could see us, brother.”

“I know. She thought she was hallucinating.”

“We’re definitely not something you see every day. Well, I do, I can’t seem to shake them-“

Steve interrupted Tony, looking to the end of the rainbow bridge. “Do you have a plan?”

“No.” Loki looked to his brother, imploring and small. “I was hoping-“

But Thor had never learned the truth behind Loki’s ventures, and it was his task to walk the path alone. At least, that’s what the thunderer said. The team did not doubt that if he did know, rules would not stand in the way of his mission to wipe the helplessness from Loki’s face.

“Then I don’t know where to start. How can I ever find her hair? It’s impossible!”

“Not for you, brother,” Thor smiled, and Loki tried to return it. His face crumpled. He shook his head.

“I don’t know what to do.”

Tony reached out for him, and Loki reached back, desperate for any comfort or familiarity or guidance, but the world once again shifted and Loki was gone and Clint felt the anger bubble back up like a volcano erupting.

“For fucks sake!” he screamed at the sky. “Give the man a goddamn _break_!”

There was no reply. Clint was half convinced he was yelling in the wrong direction.

It was now dark, and there were trees, a forest, and Clint was sure he was going to put his training to good use if there was even a single bump in the night. “Where are we?” He snapped. Thor shook his head.

“I would like to say Vanaheim. I do not know for certain.”

“It's a forest,” Hawkeye hastened to remind him. “You promised me, hammer-head.”

“I do not have control of the situation!” Thor snapped, and these last few conversations proved to be the closest thing he'd ever come to being angry with any of the Avengers. Clint and Thor didn't always see eye-to-eye, but rarely had he been the subject to such a monumental stink-eye before.

Clint wasn't in the mood for it. He wasn't capable of letting it phase him. He stood a little straighter, ignored that he was tiny and puny next to the god, because he felt in that instance that the universe owed him something. He knew why he was so angry – because there was a blatant injustice, a wilful ignorance, and it was perpetuated by Thor's father and in turn, Thor himself.

“Hey,” Cap said, coming between the two of them. Tony wasn't far behind. “Let's find Loki first. It's dark and it's cold, and we don't know how much time we have.”

“Because it's not like going to Loki isn't playing into the psycho's hands,” Clint said. “Whoever is doing this is targeting Loki for a reason.”

“We _know_ ,” Tony said, voice equally as strained. “You're not the only one capable of noticing the glaringly obvious, bird-breath.” 

“The quicker we find him, the quicker we can get out of here and go home.” Steve said, ignoring Tony completely. Thor stormed ahead and the others followed. Clint was slow to pick up the pace, falling behind. Natasha, who had stayed out of the altercation up until now, hung back with him, reaching out.

“What's wrong?” She asked quietly, and Clint shook her arm off. Replied with a muttering he later hoped she didn't hear.

Loki was hiding around the next tree, alone and huddled amid the thickest parts of the forest. It looked like it was threatening to rain.

He looked up. His smile held none of the fury Clint felt. He seemed genuinely relieved to see them. To see _anybody._

“How goes the trail, brother?” Thor sat beside him by the fire, bereft of any negative affect Clint had infected in him, and stroked a hand down his brother's hair. Loki reached up to grip their fingers together.

“Look here,” he whispered, an explosion in the silent trees, his face a flicker of light as he proudly presented a small bundle of gold from his pocket.

“You’re collecting it,” Thor said, as if he had expected something different.

“I know I still have a way to go, but I think it is possible.”

“What have you been doing? Stalking across the realms in the hope that _perhaps_ a hair will be here?”

“They have to be _somewhere_ ,” Loki insisted, pulling away from him with Thor’s disheartening response. “I will find them and I will return to Asgard.”

“To Sigyn?” Natasha said slyly, testing the waters. Loki responded as well as they expected, whirling on the woman and snapping, “Do not start this again.”

“Start what? We barely had a chance to talk to you about it before-“

“Before you left.” Loki nodded. “Before you _abandoned_ me on the Bifrost.”

“We didn’t mean to,” Bruce said, and he was a hard man to argue with when he put on his _sincerest apologies_ voice. “We don’t have a lot of control over this.”

“It is not Sigyn.”

“And you gleaned that from an afternoon in her company? You _do_ remember that we come from the future when the world is all kinds of messed up?” Tony argued.

“People change.” Clint said.

Steve agreed, “A thousand years is a long time.”

“Be silent!” Loki yelled, his patience fraying with his wavering voice. The Avengers obeyed, though none of them were happy about it.

It was Bruce who knelt in front of him, said in the middle of the thick, suffocating atmosphere, “I've been having relationship problems too.”

Behind him, Clint couldn’t help a sharp bark of laughter. Loki glanced over Bruce's shoulder and shared a small smile with the archer, briefly. The assassin found himself realising that it wasn’t as weird as he thought it’d be.

He’d seen Loki exchange positive and even fond expressions with some of the other Avengers, and the pleading look he sent towards Tony when he was walking towards his death still haunted him, but Clint himself had never shared something profound with the smarmy bastard, for fairly obvious reasons. They didn’t get on and it was not necessarily because Loki wasn’t a nice person (though, on the whole, he wasn’t), but because Clint was still bitter about New York. That had resulted in a body count higher than Clint could atone for, and meant that he wasn’t ever more than civil, at least through outward expression, towards the god of mischief. His secret inner feelings may not harmonise with what he publicly displayed, but Clint firmly believed that actions were what counted. He had to, sometimes.

Loki, in turn, could very easily sense that Clint was hostile towards him, so had always reacted to him in a calculated manner. Sharing a secret smile with him now meant that either Loki couldn’t tell Clint was a little cut-off emotionally, or that he was just short of people to smile at. Though the archer would like to say it was the latter, it was also becoming blatantly obvious that even when it had been _Clint_ who had _murdered_ him in the forests of Norway, the god of this ancient age was prone to fathomless wells of forgiveness. His heart, whilst not true or pure, had its moments. There was, apparently, some truth in Thor's late-night tales.

Clint knew he wasn't an easy man to love. He also knew he wasn't very good at returning it. The fact he had evidence of both, wrapped up in a package-sized smile from a man he'd once hated, was jarring. It was also nothing more than kindle onto his anger-fire.

“I want to punch someone in the face for you.” He announced, apropos of shit-all, startling everyone's attention. He was looking at Loki, clenching his fists in preparation, and was still woefully shocked when that smile came back. “Seriously, just point me in a direction, give me a name. I'm an assassin, I could do more than just punch.”

“I'm unsure if I'm willing to lead you into that danger.” He replied.

“If you're talking about Odin, you don't even have to ask. I can take him.”

“Please,” Loki said when he alone realised how serious Clint was. “Don't.”

“Only if you're saying that for your sake and not his.”

“I deserved this punishment.”

“I know. I saw you go crazy and try to kill someone. I was there. You'd be in a cell right now if the world worked my way. But if the world worked my way you'd also realise there is something fishy going on.”

“You are not talking about my father.” Loki said, with a suspicious certainty that made his tone hard and destroyed the pleasantness in this features.

“You have to realise how strange this is-”

“I _know_ ,” Loki returned, stopping Clint mid-sentence. He looked to his brother, then to Tony, then to Bruce. He said, “I know. What is wrong with your beloved?”

“He's a little grumpy with me. I've been keeping quiet about,” Bruce looked around, gestured to Loki. “Well, about a lot of things. He's not taken it well.”

“Lies do not harbour friends,” Loki said, and he should know. “But sometimes it is necessary.”

“For your well-being, perhaps. You should count yourself lucky I'm willing to lie for you, and that Hawkeye wants to punch your dad. That's a big thing for us.”

“Does this have a point?” He replied, tired under the doctor's knowing gaze.

“The point is, Loki, that there is something terrifying going on, and we don't understand why-”

“Nor do _I_ -”

“Listen,” Bruce interrupted. “Listen to me. What I don't understand does little to help my blood-pressure. For everyone's sake, I'd like us all to be on the same page as whoever is doing this to us.”

“I'm trying to help as I can. I've looked through the library-”

“Look again. And don't,” Bruce said, gesturing to the gold in Loki's hand. “Don't think that anything is impossible. We're here, aren't we? That's impossible.”

Loki was silent for a long time, and above them the rain started coming down. They all remained dry, however, whether that was through the thick canopy or Loki, and Thor's hand over his brother's became tighter as Loki shook.

“Don't leave me here.” He said, but it was too late.

–

Loki was grinning, the sun was shining, and Clint was edgy.

They'd found him in under five minutes – somewhere completely different, in the middle of a little stone town. Loki was shaking his fist at them, revealing his success in a bunch of golden hair. It must have felt bigger to him; him who was dirtier than when they saw him not minutes before, because time had a way of making the smallest victories feel monumental.

His solo-mission, however, hadn't made him any less perceptive. He caught his brother's frown, disliked the way that Thor did not share in his joy.

“Perhaps there are easier ways.” The older god said in his own defence, still miserable from the rain of Vanaheim.

“What do you suggest?”

“Not collecting hair a piece at a time, for starters,” Natasha said, and Thor was agreeable.

“Do not latch onto the idea that this,” he clenched his fist around Loki’s tight grip on the hair. “Is the only solution.”

“You said nothing was impossible,” and his glare now was to Bruce, who nodded.

“Nothing is. Therefore, it is possible there is a better way.”

“You mean find something of equal value. Where do you expect me to find such a thing? This is not just about a sheen, it is about a reputation!”

“Maybe you should have thought about that before cutting it all off.” Clint called out.

Loki scowled. “I see your mood has not become more agreeable since we last met.”

“Yeah, which was like three seconds ago.” He returned.

“Iðunn?” Thor suggested, seemingly without prompt, and received a kick for his troubles. Loki called him useless.

“What good may I expect to find from her? Gold, perhaps, to replace the sheen of Sif’s hair, but no hair to speak of! She would not even let me through the gates!” Probably for good reason, Clint did not add. He clenched his bow between his fists. He tried not to punch anything for real this time.

“We said much the same when you told us your tale,” Thor replied softly, and his hands were once again on Loki’s hair, moving to hold his cheek. He watched the cogs in his brother’s head creak and twist, and it might have been a major spoiler alert but it worked to brighten something in Loki's expression. Hope, maybe. “I know you will find a way.”

And they were gone again. Clint was looking in just the right direction to see Loki's features crumble.

–

“Do you think they will kill _me_?” Loki screamed at them one night when they dare suggest that that it might not be all that bad. At least the weather was nicer here. “Who did I leave behind? Who do you think will have to pay for my mistakes?”

And they hadn't thought about that. It left a stone in their bellies and an unease to their stilted discourse as they stumbled head-first into the next time-period.

\--

“How long have you been out here now?” Tony asked.

Loki's face was a tragedy. One of the ones that are tedious and make you want to hit yourself repeatedly. Loki had a _really_ punchable face. Clint _really_ wanted to punch something.

\--

“What's so great about her?” Tony asked, and it wasn't just jealousy. He'd been forced to abandon that somewhere around when they'd all met Angrboða. He wasn't really cut out for jealousy anyway. He had an emotional capacity that couldn't handle it, and an ego that didn't recognise it.

“I don’t know-“ Loki said in reply. It was a steady and considered answer. “I don’t feel how I felt then. It was overwhelming.”

“It was impressive,” Tony admitted, sinking down next to him. Loki looked wretched. “I mean, I’ve fucked up pretty badly once or twice,” and he tapped his arc reactor to prove it. “But I’ve never shaved someone’s head and then been forced to go on an impossible journey through the universe to track it all down.”

“You have a way with words,” Loki returned. Tony winked. Somehow, there was an ease. These were smiles Tony so easily smiled, and he responded to Loki as turbulently as Loki responded to Tony. A harmony in discord. Clint almost believed that Loki _was_ about to propose. And if it wasn’t Loki, it was going to be Tony.

\--

They were in a bar that Thor had found and dragged his brother into, demanding he drink himself out of oblivion. Or into. One of the two. The joint was one of those oldy-worldy taverns that Clint hadn't really believed in until he was there in the middle of an honest to god brawl. Someone had already snapped his bow. His reinforced _titanium_ bow. Aliens were the worst. 

And when Clint was delusional enough to believe things could only perk up from here (the fight was pretty epic from the secluded spot Loki had somehow managed to silvertongue his way into; he'd probably started the fight himself for that exact reason), things just had to go make themselves inherently more terrible.

The axe, for example, which came out of nowhere and embedding itself in between Loki's long fingers, indicated that they were not amongst friends.

Loki had jerked back with a yelp Clint wished he'd managed to get on tape. Thor jumped to his feet, posturing for a creature who could not see him, until Nat managed to tug him back down.

The stranger made no more threatening moves, apparently satisfied with Loki's still saucer-wide green eyes.

It was a dwarf, hulking and jewelled and pierced, with a magnificent mane of red and a matching beard which reached all the way down her belt. She looked to Loki with a smug smile and said: “I heard you were looking for golden hair. Perhaps, for a price, I could be of assistance?”

There was a beat, the Avengers glancing over to the young prince, so they didn't miss a single expression which crashed over every cave and peak of Loki's face. His eyes spoke of suspicion, but his gasp of relief. His entire body loosened, as if it had suddenly liquefied. He was leaning heavily towards Thor, his only real support.

The dwarf, meanwhile, had altered her tune, smugness dwindling as Loki began to stand.

He was beautiful in that moment, honest and happy and relaxed, and he reached out to clasp the dwarf's thick hand without needing to be introduced.

“I can compensate you for your pains,” he assured her, mind still quick despite his relief. Despite the fact that he realised he might be able to return home. Despite the fact his fiancée may be saved, and that his quest may be over, and that it looked to be the end of an impossibly long amount of life with so little gained. “We shall have to negotiate terms, I will try to give you anything within my power-”

“You play the innocent, but we know that much is within your power, Loki.”

And for a moment, there stood Loki Classic: all sharpness and cocked eyebrows and open palms as if to imply honesty. “There are things which it is not wise to remove from where only I can get to them.”

“But you _can_ get to them.”

Loki's eye narrowed, and he said in a low voice: “If you can give me what I am looking for, then I will be in your debt.”

The dwarf considered this, but not for very long. You didn't have to be the God of Lies to recognise that this was the outcome she had been looking for. Loki's face didn't alter, but Clint felt the stab of fear.

It wasn't impossible that Loki was walking straight into another trap, but the god shrugged it off carelessly with the fur that covered his shoulders, swept it away. There was the bigger picture to consider: _Home_. After months of fruitlessness he was not going to miss his first – and potentially only – opportunity.

“What do you have in mind?”

“A drink, to start,” the dwarf replied, pushing herself down to sit at the table. She didn't see the way Natasha dived out of the seat beneath her, rolled, and landed on Clint instead. “Of course, the price depends on how badly you need the hair.”

“Not as badly as you seem to think,” Loki said, blasé. Carefully so.

The dwarf plucked the tankard straight from his hands and pressed it to her lips instead. She said after a long drag: “What will your people do to you if you do not return with it?”

Loki’s expression hardly faltered, as though he had not spent endless nights awake, screaming himself to the bones, nightmares fuelled by that very thought. “I would not know. What is your name?”

“Names are irrelevant, Odinson.” She looked to Loki’s eyes and corrected with a vicious smile, “Or at least dangerous in the wrong hands. Just know that I am the daughter of Ivald, and myself and my brother will make you the hair you so covet. And apparently need with some speed.”

“Allow me to put my faith and gratitude in you and your brother, Ivaldson,” Loki returned graciously, and hopefully it was just his friends who could pick up his unconsciously snide tone. It was going to get him into trouble one day – the Avengers had already seen that much.

As she left, and not without taking some gold for her troubles, Loki's collected expression slid off his face, leaving him looking a little... out of it.

“Are you feeling well, brother?”

Loki nodded absently, reaching out to touch Thor's arm. His eyes were unfocused, and his fists curled. “It's almost over,” he said to himself like a hallelujah. “It's almost over.”

“You can't say you didn't deserve it.” Clint hastened to remind him, because his blissed-out face was kinda creepy. Tony was starting to stare.

“Have a drink,” Loki insisted, pulling out some gold again and flicking it towards Hawkeye with enviable aim. Enviable, that is, if Hawkeye wasn't already _awesome_. “Do not act so grim. What did Stark say? _Lighten up_.”

“You'll lighten up when I shoot you in the face.” Clint said, elaborating: “With an _exploding_ arrow.” Then again, “It'll set you on fire.”

“I see.” Loki allowed, waving him away.

Yeah, Clint had already had a drink or two. This alien stuff was undoubtedly heady. He had to wave Natasha and Steve both away, ignoring even Bruce's careful look as he left them behind to go invisible steal something and toss the coins wherever a bartender would pick it up before their clients.

He didn't need anyone worrying about him. Not when they had themselves to be concerned about. He wasn't going to fool himself. Hawkeye, as usual, was just a background character to a bigger story.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come find me at: [my usual blog](http://www.space-leviathan.tumblr.com), and [my writing blog](http://www.spaceleviathan.tumblr.com).


	14. 9 - The Prison

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HA ha! It is done!

The Avengers were cornered.

Considering the collective IQ of the heroes, touching somewhere in the thousands, they had still managed to walk right into a trap. They should have been prepared, they should have _known_. 

It wouldn't be difficult to escape, but they'd regret it if they tried. They were pinned down by nothing more than stares and that was somehow worse than restraints.

It was Jane, it was Sam, it was Daniel. It wasn't Pepper,  _yet_ . The three of them had threatened to call Rhodey too. 

The only team-mate who would have no qualms getting up and walking out of the living room, where they all sat in tense silence whilst their significant others glared at them, was Hawkeye, but Clint was also the only person who had a physical motivation to stay sitting which took the form of Natasha's hand wrapped in prime position to break his arm if he left her alone with a tense Sam Wilson.

The Avengers were in no mood for this. The length they'd been away had been longer than they'd been gone before, and they were feeling worn thin and exhausted. Clint wasn't sure about the rest of them, but he was aching all over, like he hadn't slept in a week. It was entirely possible he hadn't.

He felt, for lack of a better term, hungover. His head was pounding with dehydration, he was overheated, he felt like he was going to puke at every nudge. Natasha kept on digging her elbow into his stomach, because she was stuck between Steve and Clint, and Clint was flush up against the armrest whilst Steve was trying to shrink down to accommodate Thor's bulk on his right. The sofa was designed for three  _normal_ people, maximum; no wonder Nat was practically in Clint's lap.

Bruce and Tony had claimed the smaller sofa, and they looked twice as restless. Bruce was doing his deep breathing thing: breathe out longer than you breathe in, count, concentrate. Tony looked like he was going to bolt at any second.

Of all the things they'd faced, loved ones still scared them the worst. Clint supposed it was because they were the foe you couldn't fight. The Avengers, therefore, were forced to listen instead.

And they were being very quiet.

It was Daniel, Bruce's clever scientist boyfriend with the perfect hair and all those tattoos, that spoke first. Jane looked like she was caught between concern and scientific wonder (a distinctive expression: somewhere between frustration and drooling) whilst Sam's expression was exasperated. He'd known Steve and Nat all of five months was already resigned to their crazy life.

“What the hell is happening to you guys?”

“You've been freaking us out!” Sam said, encouraged, with Jane nodding frantically behind them.

“We're not idiots, and you need to talk to us.” She said. “We can help! It might not be exactly our expertise, but we've gotten pretty good at expanding our horizons. I'm dating a Norse _god_. We've come into this knowing what we've signed up for.”

“We can take anything you throw at us.” Sam stated blankly, looking pointedly at Nat and Steve. “Seriously, we're not about to run out on you at the first sign of trouble.”

“Pepper is gonna kill you if she finds out you've been lying to her.” Daniel said to Tony. Looked to Bruce. “Hell, I might kill both of you on principle.”

“I don't even know where to start.” Steve said when no one else would, and Sam made a long noise.

“Where the hell have you guys been going?”

“Going?” Tony harked. “Well, a lot of places actually-”

“No, wait,” Bruce interrupted. “How did you know?”

“How did we know?” Jane returned. “Well the first big clue was when you'd all suddenly walk out the door...”

“Yeah, we haven't been doing that-” But once again, Tony was stopped by Bruce, who this time put a hand on his arm.

“Tony, they don't mean us, they mean... _not-us_.”

“'Not-us'? Oh!”

It took Clint a minute too, but he eventually realised that Bruce referred to the 'visages' of themselves that could be wandering around in their place for days whilst their real selves traversed across the galaxy.

When they returned to their proper lives, the Avengers were all left with ghostly after-images of what they'd done in the time they'd been absent. Mostly, for Clint anyway, it didn't seem to be an awful lot. He'd largely meander around the tower, half-heartedly going through the daily motions. Really, it was probably a little creepy to view him from the outside, because he was more of a speechless, dead-eyed zombie then a person, but he wasn't doing any harm...

“Oh my god,” Tony said suddenly. He and Bruce stared at each other, then to the rest of them as if they should have figured it out too. Natasha shrugged, looking to Clint as if he might be able to somehow get a read on the geniuses quicker than she could. Clint pulled a face, shook his head.

And then Clint suddenly latched on to Dr. Banner's thinking.

“Oh, shit.”

Tony announced: “That fucker is doing something with our bodies. Maybe this hasn't been about Loki at all!”

“I wouldn't throw that away just yet,” Bruce soothed, no doubt mentally sorting through all the memories they'd seen of Loki alongside all the half-memories they vaguely remembered upon waking back in their bodies. Memories which were apparently very false.

“Are you saying that we aren't moving at all? That it's a ruse?” Cap asked, trying to dumb down his question enough that the scientists wouldn't try to befuddle them all with techobabble.

“We can't be seen in the other worlds because we aren't there. We're being projected through time!” Bruce exclaimed.

“Okay,” Steve said, about to query further, but was overrun by an over-eager, _furious_ , Tony Stark.

“Didn't you hear me? He's doing something with our bodies when we're not in them! He's extracting us from our bodies so that he can use us to some nefarious purpose that we have no idea about!”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Sam interrupted, reminding the Avengers that the other three were still present and listening in. “'Projected through time'? 'Other worlds'?”

“You've got to follow us next time,” Bruce said to his boyfriend, standing suddenly. “Danny, you need to find out what we're doing.”

“Okay.” Daniel said, bewildered, before blinking twice and stating: “No! I mean, yes, I'll do it, but you need to explain-”

“We need to set up equipment,” Tony was babbling in the background. “We need to track ourselves. I can get JARVIS to do that. We need to figure out _how_ he's taking us from our bodies-”

“Back up-” Sam tried to say, but wasn't allowed to continue.

Tony turned to Thor and said, “We need to tell Loki.”

“Stop!” Jane just about yelled. “Loki? Loki's dead!”

“I'm sorry, didn't you hear talk about projection through time? You know, funny story, but Loki was alive in the past.” Tony sneered. Jane looked like she was about to try her luck at throwing Mjölnir.

“Guys,” Steve stood then, pushing himself between the Avengers and the people who loved them. The same people whose patience was rapidly wearing thin. “I think we should talk about this calmly.”

“I have stuff to do.” Tony declined, already walking towards the elevator to his lab. “Important sciency stuff that might help us figure all of this out. How about you stay, and I go solve all our problems?”

“You can be the one to explain it all to Pepper, then.” Steve called after him. Tony threw an obscene gesture over his shoulder.

The other Avengers braced themselves as Cap turned back around and took a breath. This was going to be an awkward conversation.

\--

They were in the long halls of the Asgardian palace, and immediately Clint felt unease whirl through his gut. There was a looming, dark entry way at the end of the hall, and they were all inexplicably walking towards it.

“I've got tracers on me and Bruce, at least,” Tony reported absently, shaking one arm. “Hey, guys, how does it feel to not actually be temporal?”

“Thank you for reminding us, Tony,” Steve replied, but he was frowning at his hand too. Clint didn't think he felt any different, but the knowledge that he was _actually_ somewhere still on Earth did little to soothe his nerves.

They stopped in front of the dark archway, and through it was a set of stairs leading into blackness. This seemed like the worst idea they'd ever had, and yet they were still going to do it.

“Maybe today will be okay?” Clint suggested optimistically, despite what his stomach was telling him. No one replied.

They looked down the corridor as they descended the stairs, fear building up in Clint's chest, crushing any hope dead. They found themselves standing in the Asgardian prison once again, and the last time they had been there Loki had been told his mother was dead. Soon after, so too was he.

At the end of the hall sat the very same cell Loki had been trapped in, and there was something beckoning them there now.

They all moved forward, despite how adamantly Clint did not want to, his feet stepping one after another without his brain inputting commands. He tried to reach out to Natasha, but she was inches too far forward, sticking steadfastly on Steve's left.

Clint almost didn't want to look as they drew level, completely prepared to see Loki watching them from the other side of the golden glow that kept the prisoners inside their cages, so was relieved when he saw blonde hair instead of black, and tattered brown leather in place of the usual green.

“Angrboða?” Thor asked, making the woman startle. She threw something, a piece of bone, at the barrier, with no luck. She glared, recognising them, and bared her teeth. Her head then snapped to the left. She scrambled up from the floor, flicking her hands furiously in their direction in a universal signal of _get the hell out of here_. Predictably, not a single Avenger did as told.

“What are you doing here?” Tony asked, only to have the woman hiss at him. The inventor fell silent for a long moment, shocked that she honest-to-god _hissed_ in his direction. This, however, seemed to be the reaction she had wanted, since as soon as Tony's mouth started to move around a recovery, a pair of footsteps cut him short.

The Avengers slipped into the shadows, instinct overriding common sense. However, there seemed to be more and more people who could see their not-bodies whilst they were stuck travelling through time, but one of those few were a very beautiful woman named Sigyn who had just reached the bottom of the steps to the prison and was now walking in their direction.

Clint looked back to Angrboða who had crouched down, the bone she threw at them collected up and being rubbed gently between her fingers. She looked wild – her blonde hair pointing in all directions, whilst her skin was grubby with mud and... was that blood? Of course it was.

Her clothes were irreparably damaged and were nothing like the neat cloth they had seen her wear in previous meetings. She was donned in thick leather, suitable only for hunting during the freezing winter months. Perhaps that's what time of year it was for her on Earth, but in Asgard she was glaringly overdressed.

Sigyn, on the other hand, was draped in silks and flowers, and they trailed behind her like a blessing. Of the few long-term prisoners that were in the golden cells, every single one of them stared at her like she was just that. She was the polar opposite of Angrboða: dark hair and graceful and calm. She smiled benignly as she slowed, turning the corner to look the grubby woman in the cage. Angrboða did not return the expression.

“Who are you?” Sigyn asked, voice soft and forgiving, and she should be thankful that Angrboða was locked away else the explosion of anger the woman unleashed in her cell would have torn Sigyn to pieces.

“I'm sorry,” Sigyn said when the blonde stopped to breathe. “I merely thought we could start anew. My name is Sigyn, and whilst I already know of you, Angrboða, you need not reply.”

The Avengers did not have the best vantage point for keeping an eye on both faces during what was obviously going to be a terse interaction. However, here was Hawkeye's niche. He was a spy. Perhaps he was no Black Widow, but he didn't need the Red Room to be quiet. He could sneak with the rest of them, and he had the added advantage of not needing to be within earshot to read a conversation.

Sigyn's expression, he saw as he edged away from his team-mates and towards a dark, dank little corner, was cracking. Underneath, where one might expect anger, was sorrow. She closed her eye briefly, whilst Angrboða sneered and held her breath, before gulping down her bravery and saying: “Someone needs to talk about your children.”

This was, of course, the wrong thing to say. Angrboða's fists clenched so tightly that the bone in her hand splintered. Her hand slowly bled red, the shards sticking into the flesh of her palm, and she did not notice. She said, instead: “Your god murdered them.”

Sigyn was quick to shake her head, almost reaching out a hand to push against the wards of the cell. She chanted _no, no, no_ , they weren't dead, but the furious, terrified mother would not accept it.

“He killed them! He took them away from us!”

“I swear!” Sigyn replied, still tossing her head to and fro in distress. Her fist was scrunched up against her chest, her heart, like she might cry. “I swear on their father, on my husband, they are not dead!”

Angrboða didn't calm down immediately, her eyes blazing black with madness, blood from her hand dripping to the floor, but she stopped yelling. She gave Sigyn a chance to say more, but when she looked too shaken to take the initiative, the blonde took control out of the beautiful woman's hands.

“I was told about you. You are the woman that drove Loki insane.”

“No, of course not-” but Angrboða growled, literally, and Sigyn jumped.

“I have heard the stories, Sigyn, from many mouths. Do not say it did not happen.”

“It happened, but I promise I did not cause it.”

Angrboða sniffed, but did not seem ready to pursue it. She knew Loki well enough to recognise that there was a very real possibility he had always been insane. She assessed the woman with whom she shared a husband and slowly said: “If my children have not been murdered then where are they?”

“They were going to send a guard to speak to you,” Sigyn started in reply. “I could not allow them to tell you like that.” She paused when she saw Angrboða make a menacing step forward, disliking the apparent act of random kindness from a stranger who should, for all accounts, loathe her. “And I will admit I wanted to talk to you. To meet you. I have been told about you, too.

“Your children, however, have been through a great deal of trauma and I cannot with a clear conscience finish my life without talking to you.”

Angrboða's eyes were no longer angry, but frightened. She stared at Sigyn, mouth slack with worry, which was quickly stripped back to the bare bones of outrage when the dark-haired woman continued: “How could you subject them to magic so early? Did you not anticipate the damage?”

“Say that again.”

“You should have both known what magic can do to children that young! Your eldest is hardly twenty-three, and already his mind has been twisted by the doings of you and my husband!”

“They are born of it,” Angrboða said quietly, seemingly calm but her chest heaved and her fingers were itching for a fight.

“Do you not regret it at all?” Sigyn appeared appalled that the first words the blonde said hadn't been some form of apology or grovelling. Clint, meanwhile, felt like he was walking in on an well-worn issue. Angrboða was not of here, had different teachings and had raised children of a different culture. Racism was alive and well the universe over. It was as if Sigyn was upset because Angrboða had taught her offspring about her own religion and not the one that Sigyn favoured. This was not as far from the truth as Clint would have liked.

Sigyn spoke again, since Angrboða looked like she may tear down the walls if she was forced into a reply. “Your son, Fenris, is here. He is alive and he is here, with us. With his grandparents in Asgard. They will help him and teach him. He will be safe with a guardian that can undo what you have to him.”

Angrboða snarled, but Sigyn shook her finger. “Not you alone, of course, but my husband, too. He is not innocent in this, and I will ensure that he regrets every day all the things he has done to those he should have loved. He should have protected them. _You_ should have protected them, rather than force them into your underhanded, vicious, cruel magical world.”

“They are _of_ magic!”

“Of course they aren't!” Sigyn spat in response, her own patience cut short when it came to the apparently well-being of kids. Clint acknowledged that she was doing what she thought was best, that she was saying what she thought was right, but he had seen those feisty little bastards first-hand, and he could not point out any immediate deficits in any of them. Besides being Loki's offspring, but that wasn't their fault.

“They were not exposed to magic.” Angrboða said, voice level. She was on the edge of something disastrous.

“Your second-born.” Sigyn interrupted abruptly. “Loki said he is much like you. I don't know what he means, but he could not be brought to Asgard. The All-Father deemed him too dangerous to be allowed here. He saw hope for Fenris, but Jörmungand seems to be a more complex case. He shows signs of terrifying magic, and the All-Father fears he would use it against us more quickly than his brother.”

“Where is he?”

“He is isolated for now in the seas of Midgard, where he will not be a danger to anyone. With time, he may prove himself to us, and then he may join Fenris here in Asgard.

“Your daughter, however, is a lost cause. She had to be left in Niflheim.”

“What?” Angrboða screeched. “It is empty since your god ravaged it all those years gone!”

“Do not speak lies!” Sigyn near-shouted, before biting hard on her lip to reign in her temper. Calmly, she spoke: “We could help her. We searched the nine realms over for a place that she may be saved, but that was the only world in which she would stop screaming.”

“Do not stay my tongue of lies when you yourself are full of them! My daughter has never made a sound since the day she was born!”

“That is no fault of ours, but evidence of the damage you have inflicted upon that girl. We do not understand what you did to her, nor how to undo it, but your abuse of her has left her mad!”

“They were not exposed, they were born of it!” Angrboða said again, this time slamming her hands against the barrier of her cell and letting the magic sizzle away her skin. She scratched at it, trying to get through, pounded her fists against it, all to no avail.

Sigyn replied: “That's not possible! Magic-born are only of folk-tales!”

“They are my children! They are magic-born as I am!”

“Then why is your flesh and blood unravelling under the influence of the magic they are supposedly born of?” Sigyn demanded.

Angrboða, suddenly, was laughing.

“You are not frightened for my children!” She stated. “You are frightened of them!”

Sigyn returned, “The power that they possess is unnatural, and until we can help them control it-”

“Control?” Angrboða asked, and it echoed down the halls like a shout. Sigyn's voice caught, she stared. “You think you can control them? They are wild creatures, and they will not be tamed by your god who believes he is the law of the universe. He does not understand magic, not as I nor even his own son knows it, and he cannot look beyond their power and see the glory that my children will one day weild.

“You think that he separated them for their benefit? Do you truly believe that all he does is for the good of others? You are wrong. Odin Borrson sees my young as monsters, sees _me_ as a monster, and will have us all killed for it.”

“No!” Sigyn screeched. “No! He would not kill his own flesh!”

Angrboða's laughter was uproarious, damaged. She almost fell over from how hard her body shook.

Sigyn evidently had not envisaged this conversation leading in this direction. She was silent and shocked, eyeing Angrboða with the same careful consideration one gave a rabid dog. A wild animal. She was still bleeding, now in more places than one, and she was alive with adrenaline. She looked like she might break free at any point and snap the necks of anyone who tried to stand in her way. Clint allowed a thankful moment that nothing short of a bear stood a chance of breaking through the magical barriers.

Then, she figured something out.

“Oh. Oh! I'm to be executed for whatever crimes the All-Father dregs from some dusty old tome, but my children have already been tried and sentenced. He would not have called it that of course, but he has found them as guilty as he will find me. You will not believe me, sweet woman, but the only reason my children are not dead is because your god cannot kill them. Tell your husband, gentle-heart, that there is no safety for them in all this universe. If they slip even once, they will be slaughtered mercilessly by the one you praise so highly.”

“You dare say anything against the All-Father-”

“Do you think he left my boy in the sea for his own protection? No, you silly girl, he left Jörmungand there to _die_. How long do you believe he will last alone in the water before it swallows him up? Do you think that Odin did not _think_ of that? My daughter is abandoned on a dead world, and my eldest will be ostracised amongst your people as the bastard son of Loki! Whilst watching this torture must delight Odin, it must also irk to know that he was unable to kill them outright!”

“The All-Father is ultimate power in this universe-” Sigyn said surely, but something in Angrboða's face made her falter.

“My children are magic-born. If there is any ultimate power, it lies in their blood.”

Sigyn's head was shaking again, but Angrboða was adamant.

“Perhaps you should see them for yourself. They are beautiful, you know. They do not even look like the monsters your god claims them to be.”

But by the time she had finished her sentence, Sigyn was gone, and so were the Avengers.

–

“Alright, talk to us,” Steve demanded, because they were still in Asgard, but the sun was shining, Loki was no where to be seen, and they were about as far from the palace as one could be whilst it still loomed on the horizon. “Evidently, the thing that's orchestrating this whole thing is trying to tell us something. What was the deal with Angrboða?”

“She broke out.” Thor said. “She channelled her rage, and she broke free. Do you know what that bone was?” Upon counting their shaking heads, he continued: “She was a Berserker. A warrior who would take the abilities and strength of a beast.”

“Kinda like you?” Bruce asked, and Thor nodded.

“Fenris was a known Berserker who ran with us for a while before-” he stopped, and breathed. They didn't press it, terrified to know how much truth was in the legends. “Jörmungand was said to be one also, but if he was then he was one who inherited the traits his mother. Loki once said he was endlessly restless, as if the only way he could stop moving was to itch away his very skin. It is not uncommon for some to feel like that, which is why they use the skins and bones of animals to direct it. Fenris rarely needed such tools.”

“As interesting as this is, it's not really explaining a whole lot.” Tony interrupted.

“She broke out because she was crazy strong and a little nuts.” Clint answered for the blond god. “I can guess at what happened next.”

“She was supposed to go to trial.” Thor stated.

“Where I'm sure they'd have given her a slap on the wrists and told her to be a good girl.” Clint returned, disgusted. “She was dead either way. I don't blame her for trying to escape. But why would this time-travelling guy want us to see that?”

“It's not about Angrboða,” Natasha said quietly.

Steve swore something red, white and blue. Continued: “It's about the children.”

–

They were in the prison cells again, and this time they ran to the corner cage where they predictably saw, not Loki, but another member of his family. Jörmungand, dark hair matted and damp, glanced up from his seat on the floor. He was picking between his teeth with a long, sharp claw of a nail and grinned horribly when he saw his visitors.

“Uncle Thor!” he exclaimed, startling a large man-shaped creature with whom he shared the cell. The creature was at least twice Jörmungand's height, and several times his width in muscle-mass alone. He wore a flat, wooden mask with a simple, empty face etched on the outside of it. Jörmungand paid him no mind. “What are you doing here?”

“We were worried,” Thor replied, and Jörmungand tapped his fingers against his face until something seemed to make sense.

“You are the ones who seem to move through the time-folds. My father usually anticipates you with both fear and excitement.”

“That doesn't surprise me one iota,” Clint claimed boldly, stepping forward. “Your dad's not entirely all there, to be honest. Though we _are_ worried, considering you're under arrest and all. What did you do?”

“Nothing.” Jörmungand shrugged, eyes sweeping over his massive cell-mate as the creature stood and flexed his not un-intimidating muscles. “I have been accused of something I did not do.”

“That seems to be a pattern,” Thor stated darkly, standing at the back of their crowd and, hopefully, Clint considered, re-evaluating his opinion of his apparent benevolent father.

“I am telling the truth,” Jörmungand said, as if expecting them to doubt him. “I was not involved at all, was I?” He now addressed the monster of a man who had started to loom over him. Outside the cell, Clint had drawn an arrow, Natasha had aimed her guns, and the rest of the Avengers had ducked into fighting stance, despite knowing there was no immediate way to get to Jörmungand in time should they need to defend him. The boy himself didn't seem as concerned.

“Thor?” The creature thundered, whilst Jörmungand continued chatting with the Avengers.

“ _He_ was involved, and tried to shoot me in my own home. When the gods came to intervene, they assumed that the blood in the water was my fault.”

Thor softly replied: “We are not gods, Jörmungand.”

“You are related to Odinson?” The creature asked.

The young man looked at his uncle for what seemed to be a long time, before shaking his head and standing up. He looked at the masked creature, not phased by its painted snarl, and spoke: “Only those who do not claim to be gods deserve the title. Those who seek to claim the word rarely recognise when they are in the presence of divine power.”

“I will kill you and all related to him!” The creature snarled, snapping its arm towards Jörmungand, and the boy ducked under its swing and circled around. The Avengers started forward, but he held up a clawed hand and drew a gentle, dismissive sigil in the air. He said calmly: “Not you.”

To the monster, he spoke with a tone smooth as silk, seemingly apropos of nothing: “May I have you mask?”

With his gruff voice, like flint on flint sparking into a violent flame, the creature replied: “It is no mask, but a face of the worthy warriors.”

“Then may I have your face?”

Clint was almost jolted to the ground by the urge to claw at his skin. He was overwhelmed with the notion that the best thing in the world would be to hand his own face over to Jörmungand, and he only just had enough willpower to overcome it. Tony also stopped himself mid-notion to tearing the helmet off his Iron Man suit, and they weren't the only ones.

All of the Avengers, in some form, had made movements towards their heads. Natasha had clenched her teeth and her fists to stop herself. Thor had almost punched himself in the face with Mjölnir. A few cells down, people had started screaming.

The creature in front of Jörmungand, however, sank down to his knees and let the boy untie the mask and draw it from his face. The dark-haired Lokison then used one skinny finger to tip the man's head and look him in the eyes. He was not a pretty thing, with evidence of multiple broken and badly fixed bones across his face, littered with ancient scars. Jörmungand smiled at him.

Said, “Break your fingers.”

And the creature did so, one knuckle at a time.

Jörmungand then commanded: “How about your neck?” This was not so immediately realised, the alien screaming and crying in pain as he tried. Jörmungand initially watched him, but soon grew bored. He ordered: “Find something in this room that will kill you and use it.”

The man's eyes flickered immediately to the weapons Jörmungand called nails, and the boy nodded agreeably. “You could have just asked.” And quick as a flash, blood sprayed across the floor, and Jörmungand was trying to clean red-stained nails with red-stained nails.

The Avengers, meanwhile, were frozen still. The next time Jörmungand spoke, sitting out of the way of the pooling blood, his voice was no longer soft and melodic. He sounded, in many ways, like his father.

“Have you always...?” Thor wondered, eyes wide with nothing akin to horror. He'd seen worse, no doubt. He'd _caused_ worse.

Jörmungand shrugged blithely. “We all have our talents.”

Clint himself would have liked to grill the boy himself, after he shook his senses back in order, mostly because the curling sickness in his stomach which had been present since he showed up in Asgard was now churning like a thunderstorm. Autonomy had briefly been stolen from him, _again_ , and he was on the verge of screaming like some of the other prisoners who had not been able to resist Jörmungand's influence.

He didn't get a chance, however, since the cries and yelling had drawn the guards, and Jörmungand was being dragged out of his cell by hair, whilst another helmeted Asgardian pointed his weapon at the boy's throat.

“Odin has seen what you have done,” he said, staring at the dead, bleeding creature in the cell. “He wishes to speak with you.”

Jörmungand twisted under the guard's hold, turning to look at the Avengers who were all still trying to draw themselves back together, wondering belatedly how they could help him; _if_ they should help him.

“Will you come with me?” He asked, looking to kind-eyed Thor desperately. The guards likely thought he was insane, talking to thin air, and they pulled on him harder. The Lokison had no choice but to follow, and the Avengers trailed after him as if in a daze.

Odin was waiting for them in the throne room, Queen Frigga absent from his side, and the image they were presented with was the same as Jörmungand ever displayed himself: smiling, steady, like he was in control. With a power like _that_ , he probably was.

“You are not permitted to speak,” Odin announced, and Jörmungand nodded once to show he understood. “You know why you are here?” He nodded again.

“You are being tried for a massacre on Midgard, and now for unlawful use of forbidden magic which led to a death and multiple injuries in Asgard. Do you know what the penalty is for evil sorcery?”

Jörmungand didn't immediately nod this time, drew his gaze slowly between the king and the guards still flanking him, and smiled with a face more like a sneer. Clint didn't need Odin to elaborate, Angrboða's warning ringing in his ears: _If they slip even once, they will be slaughtered..._ It seemed that Odin was merely looking for an excuse, and Jörmungand had certainly given him a good one.

The hall was interrupted before Odin could utter any form of sentence, a bulky form bursting through the doors and throwing three guards to the ground, all of which had tried to stop his entrance. He was wearing a black pelt across his shoulders, held his bow in hand and already had an arrow strung, ready to fire.

As he stormed up to Jörmungand's side, the Avengers could see the distinctive facial structure of Angrboða. Here was Fenris, bravely come to defend his brother.

“I will not allow you to hurt him, All-Father!” The blond man bellowed, his voice shaking the room as he if too had a magical ability. Odin, however, did not seem concerned with him. He glowered in the younger man's direction, stood from his throne, and spoke: “You dare go against me?”

Fenris, fist clenched and body thick with muscles and strength, stated: “I dare.”

Odin turned to Jörmungand, whose expression had not faltered. The king of Asgard spoke: “Do you see the damage you do? Your brother may have led a life here, before.”

“I would rather die than see you harm him!” Fenris snarled and moved to loose an arrow. Odin pointed his spear. Magic erupt from the tip, and Fenris was gone, his pelt of black fur left in a heap where he had once stood, the arrow dropping harmlessly to the floor.

Thor cried out, the Avengers all starting forward, horrified that the boy had been obliterated, but they all stopped when they realised that something was moving beneath the fur. A little black head poked out, sniffing at its surroundings.

“A puppy?” Clint asked, stuck between anger and laughter.

“A wolf cub.” Thor replied.

Tony said, “Oh my god.”

“Do you see?” Odin directed his spear now at Jörmungand, who had not moved nor made a noise. He hadn't even stopped his abomination of an expression, still looking like he was more amused than cowed by this mockery of a trial, even with what used to be his brother sniffing at his ankles. “Do you understand?”

Jörmungand spoke for the first time since entering the hall; a breathy voice which betrayed no fear. It even, in some way, spoke of admiration. “You changed his body.”

“And as with him, I will take your deadly powers from you too. Do you have anything you would like to say?”

Jörmungand was on the verge of laughing now, posture open and arms spread, grin splitting his face wide as he awaited whatever was coming. He shook his head, bit his tongue, and the Avengers charged forward.

They built a blockade around him, Thor barrelling into him and knocking him to the ground, whilst the other five fell into fighting position in front. Odin did not see them, only witnessed the second Lokison suddenly losing his balance. Nor, it seemed, did he care.

The magic certainly didn't. It grazed past the bodies that had stepped before it, and the Avengers heard Thor scream as it split through his back and hit Jörmungand in the heart.

The boy didn't make a sound, though finally his face became blank, his smile gone once and for all.

Stepping back, the Avengers saw that Thor was no longer protecting a boy, but a long, slim creature, which opened its mouth once and then again, as if it were trying to make a sound. The black wolf cub nosed at what was now a pale-coloured snake, who hissed in return. They didn't seem to recognise each other.

“Holy shit,” Tony said softly. Thor was still kneeling on the floor, now staring up at his father. He didn't stop them when the guards gathered up the animals on instruction, struck speechless by what just happened.

Clint, meanwhile, was still a little confused. He said as much as Odin too took his leave.

“He stripped them of their greatest powers. The ones that their mother spoke of. He made sure that they could never be as great as they were destined to be. That is why it is a punishment.”

“Shit.” Clint echoed into the empty hall. He wondered silently whether the Avengers could have done something more to help the brothers. He wondered why their father had not been here to protect them.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry there was no Loki this time! Maybe next chapter =D Come find me at: [my usual blog](http://www.space-leviathan.tumblr.com), and [my writing blog](http://www.spaceleviathan.tumblr.com).


	15. 10 - Loki's Halls

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, what? UPDATE? BUT I UPDATED LIKE TWO DAYS AGO?

“Did the trackers show anything?” Clint asked after Tony called him down to the lab the next day. It was nearing midday when Clint had eventually dragged himself up and managed to stick his face in a cup of coffee, and he had no regrets. It was now mid-afternoon, and his head still felt like it was full of static.

“Nope,” Tony replied, sticking the needle into Clint's arm without warning, ignoring the way he swore. “As far as I can tell, Bruce went one direction, I went another. Daniel followed Bruce and reported the exact same thing: he just walked for a while and sat down in a park. Nothing particularly suspicious. Which, of course, makes me _more_ suspicious.”

“What about you? Where did you go?”

“Somewhere mid-town. With any luck, the next time we're whisked away my body will just go to the same place. Consistency would make my life indefinitely easier.”

He stepped back when he was done, taking the needle with him, and Clint thanked his own quick-silver reflexes for catching the inventor around the arm when Stark staggered backwards.

“Is it bad for you, too?”

“It's bad for everyone. What's happening to us probably straining our bodies beyond what is safe.” Tony stated bluntly, squeezing his eyes shut and shaking his head as if that would relieve some of the pain. “I would refer you to Dr. Banner, who is actually qualified in the matter, but he's taken it particularly hard and has retreated to his room before he started breaking stuff.”

Tony was referring to the fact that every time they woke up from whatever time period they had been projected into, the Avengers all suffered headaches worst than the last. The longer they were stuck back in time, the worse the reaction. Whilst their last venture had not being particularly lengthy, it had nonetheless struck the hardest so far. Not just to Clint and Tony, but all of the Avengers. Clint had peeked into Natasha's room on the way down, only to get a pillow thrown with deadly accuracy in his direction. He had decided not to disturb her further.

“At least we're not the ones who has to put up with Bruce,” Clint joked weakly, whilst Tony hummed tiredly in agreement.

“JARVIS, tell Thor to drag his Asgardian ass out of bed and get down here. I'd like to get this over with soon.”

“Too late,” Clint spoke, slipping on his shirt. He pointed towards the exit where Thor was already knocking at the glass door of the lab, asking to the buzzed in.

“Is telepathy an innate Asgardian trait?” Tony asked as the door swung open on command.

“No. Many known telepaths in the nine realms actually herald from Mid-” the blond god stopped, rubbing a thumb across his forehead when he realised that Tony was joking. “Ah.”

“Been at the mead, have you?” Clint said, not even slightly offended when the god ignored him outright.

“Your know,” Tony changed the subject, pointing to Thor and then the table, before gesturing vaguely back towards Clint. “Speaking of Dr Tattoos-”

“Which we weren't-”

“-and lemmi tell you his tats are magnificent and _vast._ Anyway we were talking about Bruce's little detour and I admittedly got a little lost a few times because his arms are distracting and beautiful. Did I mention magnificent?”

“Please make your point quickly, Stark.” Thor asked grouchily.

“What I meant to say is that they made me realise that I know nothing about the way the tattoos we've seen on Angrboða and Loki work. You know, the ones that restrict their magic use. Gaping holes in my knowledge make me uneasy.”

“Wow, it's almost like you're human,” Clint harked.

“Wow, it's almost like your deep.” Tony shot back. “Also, why would your mother even bother to bind your brother in them? I get that he's got power and he's a dick, and those two things should never mix, but he broke out of them pretty quickly. She must have known he would eventually.”

“Admittedly, we did not anticipate him finding a way out of them. The binds, before then, had been unbreakable.” Thor answered, shrugging.

“What, magicians don't ask each other for help? That's how Loki got out, wasn't it? He just got someone else to do it.”

“It was a foolish idea from the start,” Thor continued, still caught on the previous thread of conversation. “Loki, as with much common magic, was part of the development of the bindings we use in Asgard.”

“And Angrboða?”

Thor raised an eyebrow, frowning mightily at Tony for making him think with his head pounding the way it was. Clint didn't immediately follow Tony's train of thought either.

“I mean why was she covered in them before she and Loki met?”

“I do not know why Angrboða had them. Perhaps she had been punished previously-” but he stopped, shaking his head. “No, it would have been noticed if she had been brought to trial before she married him. Loki, at the least, would have known of it.”

“Why?”

“Because she was of Niflheim.”

“You said something about their sorcerers?”

“They were some of the oldest, most powerful people in the realms. Most were obliterated before Loki and I were even born. If she had been brought before my father... well, you know what happened the last time she was taken to Asgard.”

“Then what the hell did she have them for?”

Thor shrugged, because whilst he was an overflowing well of trivia, there were limits to even his historical knowledge. “Perhaps,” he offered when Tony huffed. “It is because much of Loki's magic is based on what he has learned from what was left of those ancient sorcerers.”

“And why not bind all of Loki's magic?” Tony burst, as if it had just occurred to him. Clint knew the inventor well enough to recognise when things had really been eating at him for days. Weeks, even. He wasn't good at masking all that emotion. It didn't matter that he didn't seem as crazy-eyed obsessed as the last time they had seen Loki, but Clint knew that slightly unhinged gleam would return with time. They'd been through this before: the waxing and waning of Tony's affection seemed to be based on the time spent in Loki's company. It wasn't an isolated incident, and it wasn't just happening with Tony. As always, Clint's own protectiveness over the black-haired maniac was strongest when Loki was right in front of him. Otherwise, the itch to make him dance by aiming exploding arrows at his feet was almost overwhelming.

Tony continued: “If he's dangerous enough to cut him off, why didn't they just stop it completely?”

“Loki's magic is not natural.” Thor said in reply, sounding exhausted and strained. Resigned to the fact this was going to continue until Tony had beaten as many answers out of him before one of them collapsed. “You recall Angrboða spoke of the magic-born? They are a select few of the people from Niflheim who are able to summon magic from within. Magic, in my culture, is available to and can be used by all. I use it as much as any other Asgardian. Some, like Loki or my mother, harnessed it into a weapon.

“To better explain it to you, I might say it is a specific form of energy which is everywhere around us, but we cannot store it inside of us. Magic-born can. Magic-born _do_. 

“Loki is not magic-born, so giving him the binds should have cut him off from the magic outside of him. However, Loki is also tenacious and inventive and reckless. He became obsessed with the magic-born, and he found a way of storing the energy inside of him almost exactly as they do. So as much as we may have wanted to bind him completely, doing that would have trapped that foreign magic in his body and driven him mad. In hindsight, even blocking off as much as we did may have paved the way to his...”

“Psychosis?” Clint finished. Thor glowered.

But Tony wasn't finished. “Is that why they didn't do it to Jörmungand?”

“What?”

“I mean, if your dad as so scared of the power Jörmungand had, why not just put the bindings on him, too?”

“As the All-Father could not kill them, he was also unable to restrict them so simply. In fact, even the measures he went to didn't stop them in the end; it only forced them to adapt. Ultimately, we had to isolate Fenris completely, and Jörmungand has been left to his own devices for many hundreds of years.”

“And Hel?”

Thor almost laughed, and would have had he not been so tired. “Hel is the strongest being in this universe. The magic would not have even stuck.”

Clint nodded, asked: “Okay, so what was the point? There's always a point. If Odin's little punishment didn't do what it was meant to, then why did this guy show it to us in the first place?”

“Whoever is showing us these images of the past are forcing our hand. They want history to go a particular way, and we are inadvertently moving it in that direction.”

“No, Jörmungand wasn't our fault.” Tony said, determined to believe it, shaking his head against any possibility that he might have fucked that up too. After everything else, he might not always like Loki, and sometimes he liked Loki too much, but he had no grudge against his children and nor did Clint. Neither of them wanted to take the blame for hurting someone who did not deserve it. 

“You are right. It was mine.” Thor said, heavily, and that was just as bad as if he blamed them all. “He saw me. That creature in the cell with him attacked because of his blood which otherwise may have remained a mystery.”

“ _May_ ,” Clint stressed, because as eager as he was to point fingers in the face of uncertainty, Thor genuinely had done nothing wrong. “We don't know what would have happened if we hadn't been there.”

“What might have been is not important,” Thor snapped. “Not when what _is_ has destroyed the lives of two innocent boys.”

Both Tony and Clint moved to dissuade the heartbroken look off Thor's face, but they both caught each other, both shook their heads, realising unanimously that there was really nothing they could say.

Tony put the tracker in Thor's arm in silence, whilst Clint headed straight back to bed.

\--

Clint didn't even have to open his eyes to know he'd been displaced in space and time.

“If I see a single tree, I'm going to go apeshit,” he announced, and Natasha patted his arm reassuringly. Peeking open an eye, he muttered, “Yeah, and this has always turned out _so_ much better.”

“I don't know why you're surprised,” Cap said, sounding the least worse-for-wear of all of them, the super bastard. “Loki grew up in Asgard, so it's sensible that we would find ourselves here most often.”

“Where's the diversity? Only a few weeks ago we were hopping over  _ planets _ .”

“Please do not speak so loud,” Thor interrupted, and Clint, still tense from their earlier interaction, immediately fell silent.

“Which way?” Natasha asked, stepping away from Bruce who was grumbling under his breath, looking like he'd sooner smash them all and go back to bed, whilst Thor's face grew increasingly irritable.

“I do not have all the answers! I would not hold back if I knew!” He proclaimed, waving his hammer, only to immediately apologise when Natasha flinched and backed away. He gestured to his head, and they all understood. He didn't mean to act this way. None of them did. Even Bruce, glaring at them with red-rimmed eyes, paused to look slightly sheepish.

Footsteps sounded like gunshots against the golden floor, even to someone half deaf, and all the Avengers turned towards the noise with great scowls on their faces. They watched as a small man with a round face and big, dark eyes was led by two guards down the corridor where the heroes loitered and down towards where Hawkeye guessed was towards the great hall. He could never really make a mental layout of the palace, since every time he'd visited he had entered at a different angle, but he was starting to get a grip on the patterns of where they were being directed by their unseen tour guide.

“Who's that?” Steve asked, the first to note the way Thor's grip had clenched around his hammer.

“Holbo ð en.” The prince replied, and there was something ominous in the name. They'd heard it before, all the way back when Loki had taken them to the library.

“Loki's apprentice?” Natasha remembered most clearly. “Has he been arrested?”

Thor didn't answer, too busy trailing the guards flanking the smaller man. The Avengers wordlessly followed.

Almost as Clint predicted, they wound up in a large hall with a high ceiling and the typical gold décor. The person who was waiting, however, was not exactly the god he had been expecting.

Instead of Odin, sitting high-and-mighty on his throne above them all, Loki stood brash against the rest of his home-world. He was done up in black and green, dark and shadowy even in the sunlit refractions of the glittering room. He stood to the side, by the large empty seat reserved for his father, and was watching the procession of people spill in through the door with distaste. If he considered it odd for the Avengers to be tip-toeing after his apprentice then he did not show it.

“This man wanted to see you, Prince Loki.” One of the guards spoke, seemingly expecting the God of Lies to dismiss them all with a sweep of his hand. For a moment, going by the black look on his face that was almost a match for how shitty the Avengers felt, he seemed to be considering exactly that. His eyes fell to Holbo ðen and something changed his mind. It was obvious that he hadn't seen this man before today, but something about him interested the prince.

“Leave,” he instructed the guards, who were not eager to follow his orders.

“We do not know this man, your highness,” they insisted. “What if he is dangerous?”

“Then I'll make sure to scream loud enough to hear,” Loki returned, insincerely. Of the two of them, the prince and little Holboðen, Loki looked the most dangerous. He was all sneers and angles, whilst Holboðen seemed even smaller than before, intimidated by the majesty around him.

The guards left upon another order and a potent threat to punctuate, leaving the Avengers staring at the wide gap between two strangers.

“Who are you, and what do you want?” Loki demanded. Thor tensed, his eyebrows creased together, the cogs in his head whirring furiously. Either something didn't make sense, or he was about to do something stupid. Clint grabbed a clump of his cloak, tugging it lightly, bringing the god back to the team. Just in case.

The man bowed low, said politely: “My name is Holboðen, my lord, and I here to offer you my knowledge.”

“And what knowledge is this?” Loki asked, already half turned away, patience decaying rapidly with boredom.

“How to bridge the gap between you and your wife, the Lady Sigyn.”  _ This _ caught Loki's attention quickly, but not in any good way. “You have drifted apart since your return to Asgard, or so the rumours say.”

“Rumours are just that,” Loki said, and his body language backed up the persona he was portrayed; the indifferent god who had no time for people who succumbed to meaningless gossip. He was the liar of liars, and he was no fool victim of the prattle of commoners. “If that is all, then I would ask you on your way.”

“It is for a price,” Holboðen returned, since anything given freely thus far had only been met with suspicion. “I would not give away something for no cost.”

“As you have nothing to give me,” Loki started coldly. “I have nothing to give you. Do not make me ask you again-”

“I need you to help me.”

Loki stopped, couldn't seem to help the way his eyes flickered over to his brother, as if searching for help himself. People, Clint knew, rarely came to Loki for help. They would go to his father or his brother, and if they needed a magical solution then the obvious choice was Queen Frigga. Loki, meanwhile, was looked upon with mistrust and consternation. Admittedly, his actions consciously worked to build on this persona rather than thwart it, so ultimately it was his own fault.

Nonetheless, now that he had been approached and someone had asked for his assistance, he started to flounder. Having never been in this situation before, he didn't know how to react.

“What would you have me do?” He said eventually. This was not an agreement, but the front of disinterest was finally starting to ease. His voice was softer now, though still dubious.

Holboðen held out his hands in demonstration, bit his lip, and concentrated... A spark appeared in his hand, weak and flickering, and Loki was about to comment on it before it suddenly exploded outwards. The Avengers all dived for cover, Clint jumping behind Thor's bulk, until what looked and sounded like electricity but felt a lot like the magic Odin had pointed at Jörmungand, had faded thin. Emerging from their hiding places, Loki peeking out from the safety of the throne, Holboðen spoke: “You must teach me how to control this.”

Loki's interest had certainly been piqued now, and he was stalking towards Holboðen with intent. He held out his hand, snatching the other man's from the air, and said: “Where did you draw that from?”

Holboðen shook his head, moved his mute mouth, and didn't answer quick enough for Loki's approval. The god said again, this time more urgently: “Where did you draw the power? Magic does not work in that way! You need to have tapped into something!”

“I don't know! I don't know-”

Loki's eyes were drawn, as Clint had been, to the exposed flesh of his wrist where Loki had grabbed him. The prince tugged the sleeves up his arms, showing the patterned inks in the shape of manacles around Holboðen's forearm.

Loki sharply said, “I cannot teach you with bindings on your flesh. Why do you wear them?”

“In honesty, Prince Loki, they are to hide from your family.”

“My family? Why would you wish to hide-” but then he caught sight of a particular rune, and his eyes widened in understanding. “You are from Niflheim.”

Holbo ðen asked, voice strained with open despair: “Can you help me?”

“You are lucky,” Loki replied slowly, fighting a losing battle to tear his eyes from the tattoos around his wrist. “I knew someone with very similar markings. If you are at all like her, there is much I can teach you.”

“I know. I came to you because I discovered your relationship with Angrbo ða.” Holboðen admitted. “I am sorry to hear of her passing.”

“It is done.” Loki said dismissively, standing straight and missing the shocked look on Holboðen's face. It was not as callous as it seemed, though Clint supposed he was looking in as someone who knew Loki as well as anyone could. An outsider like Holboðen, may not see that he was insensitive in order to protect himself. “The guards will take you to a room, and if you allow me some time to break these shackles, I can teach you.”

“Without the wards, the All-Father will find me out-”

“He will not.” Loki assured. “I know magic as he never shall.”

Nodding, trusting, delighted, the man turned to go, only to spin around once again and announce: “Allow me to help you with your marriage!”

“I thought that subject had been closed,” Loki returned quickly, but Holboðen was grateful enough to continue to insist, barrelling over Loki every time he moved to protest. “Please! It is the least I can do in return for your help!”

And then he was out of the door and being led away, whilst, gobsmacked and overrun, Loki turned to the Avengers.

Clint shrugged. “Don't look at me, I have no clue what just happened.”

“You shouldn't have agreed to it,” Tony announced, partially out of a misplaced sense of jealousy he hadn't been able to stamp down in time, emotions flaring up by proximity, and partially taking cues from the tight expression on Thor's face. “Seriously, we've seen the future. He's a hack.”

“He seemed to have enough raw power to make it worth my time-”

“Actually I meant the whole thing between you and Sigyn-”

“Ignore him.” Steve said, glaring at Tony. “Though we are a bit concerned. Don't you think it's a bit weird, him coming to you out of the blue like this?”

“You do have a weakness for what is left of the people of Niflheim.” Thor reminded Loki, who made a low, savage noise. Thor continued, as Loki started to move away, “He is trouble! Nothing good can come from him!”

“Then what does he do that is so troublesome?” Loki exclaimed. “If you have seen the future, then tell me! Do not leave me floundering blindly in the present! You all seem so scared when you come to me! What are you afraid of?”

Thor was quiet. He didn't seem to have an answer for Loki, but he still seemed distressed. “He is a doorway to dark paths, brother. Angrboða is dead. You cannot chase her ghost this way.”

“I am not chasing anything!” Loki snarled. “I am helping a man who has reached out to me! Is that so foolish?”

Thor charged forward, grabbing his brother by his upper arms desperately. “It is the way that it works, Loki! You think that we are shown something when we come to visit you? No, we  _ change _ things! And never for the better! This must be a warning, and you have to be wary.”

“Fine!” Loki exclaimed, pushing the blond backwards; away from him. “I have listened to your warning, and I will keep it in mind! However, I will help him regardless and I will defend myself if I must!”

Thor shook his head, because it wasn't enough, but it was clear that Loki was not about to listen to them anymore. He was storming out of the door, temper hot and patience all but obliterated, and snapped over his shoulder: “Come back when I am less tempted to put my knives to your throats.” 

And, surprisingly, they did.

–

It was seconds to them, but weeks for Loki, and he was certainly brighter than he had been before when they knocked on his chamber door. He grinned merrily at them, waving them into his rooms and pressing a finger to his lips.

“Holboðen is expected soon, so do try not to rile me up.” He glanced at Tony especially, who winked.

“Good to know I rev your engines.”

“My you certainly  _ rev _ my temper. I don't have much to tell you regarding your travelling predicament, but I do know a bit more than before. I've been scouring through old books thanks to Holboðen's impromptu arrival, and thus attempting to return to the very basics of magic. I was wondering whether you could pin-point how exactly the connection between yourself and the environment, and myself also, could be defined? It would narrow my search down immensely.”

“You mean, how can you see us and how can we touch things?” Bruce translated, going to pick up a cloudy orb from one of Loki's tables, rolling in absently along the surface. “We thought it was just... magic.”

“There are different kinds...” Loki trailed off, glancing to Thor as if he should have already explained this. Tony glared at the blond for the exact same reason.

“Ah,” Loki then concluded. “Perhaps it is not you I gave the book to. Or I haven't given it to you  _ yet _ .” 

“Well, whatever it is, it's not whatever Odin shot at us. That went straight through us.” Steve inserted.

“You had magic cast upon you?”

Tony muttered, “Yeah, no thanks to you.”

Loki's look towards him was acid green. “If you would like to accuse me of anything, Stark-”

“It is of no matter.” Thor interrupted sharply.

Loki continued, after a beat: “Was it offensive magic? Likely what is affecting you is passive, so offensive would have no affect. Further, neutral magic that alters the properties of select individuals would be easier to maintain, and may explain why only very particular people can see you.”

“All we know is that we're not really here.” Natasha stated. “Something of us is being projected, and our bodies are being left behind. If that helps.”

Loki considered this, nodding and smiling lightly. “That would make things significantly less complicated, but it's still requires a phenomenal,  _unreasonable_ amount of power to pull it off. Perhaps, and I  _repeat_ ,” he glared at his brother. “Only the All-Father could summon such strength.”

Thor was shaking his head, a clear sign that he was unwilling to reopen old arguments. Admittedly, it was only because the door opened and a dark-haired head poked its way around the crack.

“Come in, Holboðen,” Loki stated imperiously, as if he hadn't seconds before been getting excited about time travel. Prince Loki had a reputation to maintain as a sly trickster; not a grinning buffoon. “Did you read what I set you?”

The man nodded quickly, sitting down at the table Bruce was standing by, looking at Loki expectantly. He tapped his fingers on the tabletop, licked his lips, blinked a lot. His eyes were constantly flickering in all corners. Clint wondered how it didn't drive Loki mental.

“And did you make any progress with the simple summoning spell?”

And just like magic, the student's face dropped. He hung his head. “I'm sorry,” Holbo ðen moaned miserably, running a hand down his face, but Loki shook his head and clicked his fingers.

“Don't be sorry. _Do_.”

“I couldn't do it. I tried, but things kept dropping and smashing-” He stopped mid-sentence, looking at his own hands, appalled. He clenched them open and shut, before slamming his closed fist down on the table.

The Avengers jumped. Loki did not.

He sat instead on the chair opposite his apprentice. He watched him for a while. The man looked scared, and Clint didn't stop to wonder why. Loki had his serious face on, and nothing good ever came from that.

Eventually, the trickster god spoke.

“You remind me of my children,” he said, and the admission had obviously been ripped painfully from his throat. “They had the same problems as I have seen in you: impulsivity, aggression. I taught them as I will teach you. When you realise you have done something on that impulse, whether it be magic or using your fist, correct it immediately. Apologise if you must. Backtrack. If it can't be corrected, think cleverly. You are smart, if only you'd sit still long enough to recognise it. So, do as I say. Summon something.”

Holbo ðen, expression still terrified, nodded and did as told. He concentrated on a vial of something dark and goopy on one of Loki's shelves, held out his hand, and willed it towards him. It shook for a moment, and then exploded. The Avengers winced as a collective headache at the noise. Holboðen looked as if he might cry.

“What did I say?” Loki snapped. “When you have done something wrong, what do you do?”

“Correct it.” The student echoed wetly, and the teacher nodded.

“So?”

Holboðen concentrated again, and although he didn't summon anything towards him, he did something else instead. Muttering,  _correct it, correct it_ , under his breath, the glass collected itself up and smoothed back into the delicate vial it had been before. 

The goopy liquid remained on the ground, but Holboðen was not concerned at the incompleteness of the job. He was amazed he'd done anything proactive at all, staring at his hands as though it were the first time he'd seen them. Across from him, Loki almost smiled.

Holboðen moved to make a hand gesture again on command, excited by this new display of ability... and the Avengers were gone.

–

They caught Loki alone, the next time, and their heads were still aching and Clint's teeth felt funny and his stomach was queasy. He hoped it'd be worth it – that they would come out of this richer for the experience if nothing else, but rather doubted it. Loki seemed a little... all over. That wasn't entirely unusual.

Thor sat on one side, Tony the other, whilst the rest of them flanked the table Loki sat behind. There were papers strewn across the surface and Loki was moving them around as he spoke.

“How's Holboðen?” Tony asked, slyly. Loki rolled his eyes. “Is he helping you with Sigyn like he said?”

“Can you not leave?”

“Tired of me already?”

“We just go where we're directed.” Natasha answered instead. “Unless you have answers for us, in which case we might be able to turn this situation on its head.”

“Without specifics, I cannot help you any more than I already have done.” Loki shrugged. “I've already given you the book, so now is your cue to help me help you. _You_ should have answers for me.”

“I feel like we're fighting a losing battle here.” Steve intercepted. “We're not meeting you in any apparent order, and that means its confusing trying to relay what information you already passed along, or what we don't know now that we might know in the future.”

“Way to put a cheer on things, Captain Optimism.” Clint said dryly. “Though, seriously, Loki, an anthill right now will feel like a mountain, if you get me.”

“I rarely do.” Loki answered honestly. Said, as he moved the papers on his desk and rearranged the objects with an absent restlessness. “I have nothing to give you. You are never around enough to educate enough for you to engage in active discussion about the intricacies of your... situation.”

“Could you look again?” Thor asked seriously, and Loki scrunched a piece of parchment when he suddenly clenched his fist. His teeth grit together and he looked like he was about to shout from sudden frustration. Clint didn't know if his head could handle it.

And then there was Tony, who reacted to violence unlike anyone else even in their rag-tag, fucked-up little group of misfits. He wasn't cowed by the potential temper-tantrum of a god, reaching out instead, touching Loki's hand with his own.

It was like a miracle cure. Loki immediately stilled, all fidgeting dying in an instant, and he stared at the way Tony touched his hand right up until the inventor realised what he had done and flinched away.

Brokenly, he said, “Please.”

Equally as shaken, Loki replied, “Fine.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've also written another part to this chapter, but it was in a different time so I'm gonna post it as a separate chapter as kinda an interlude thing. It's only super short... like 1,500ish words. Come find me at: [my usual blog](http://www.space-leviathan.tumblr.com), and [my writing blog](http://www.spaceleviathan.tumblr.com).


	16. 15.5 - The Dark

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Like I said last chapter, this is just a short one! A direct continuation of the last chapter.

They were following the glow of Tony's suit through absolute darkness. They could have been many places in the galaxy on any planet, such as a cave in a forgotten corner of the universe, but there was a dusty, ancient, familiar smell all around them to mark their location. They had been here before. The library of Asgard. They hadn't even changed realms.

They had been walking for a while now. They were deeper than they had initially assumed, but every step seemed to lead them somewhere a little less dank. However, that could be a figment of Clint's over-active imagination. Luckily, Tony had a working AI in his helmet which also worked as a compass and Thor knew which direction to walk, in theory. They were heading east, and had been for almost half an hour. This had led to some serious silent time, the darkness both helping and hindering Clint's headache, and had also forced him into contemplation.

He spoke up eventually, almost certain that the others were thinking along the same lines: “D'you think that maybe...”

“It is Holboðen who is doing this to us?” Thor completed, confirming Clint's suspicions that he wasn't the only one considering it, he was just, as usual, the only one saying anything. “Until today, the thought had not occurred to me.”

“Why would he show himself to us if it was him?” Bruce asked.

“Perhaps it isn't. The pattern is Loki, or Angrboða, or the children, or... He is of Niflheim. Perhaps-” He stopped, started again, and stopped. He repeated this for a moment before... “None of this makes sense!” Having gone to and fro with theories and conclusions, until his aching head gave up, he roared. He was better suited for destroying things than trying to be diplomatic.

The Avengers all hushed him, certain they had disturbed something lurking in the oppressive dark. Thor heaved a few times, but shared in their sudden unease. They continued on their way, creeping more than walking.

“Let's say it was your father...” Steve started a little while later, making a soothing noise when Thor sounded seconds away from slipping back into a rage. “Hear me out. You said that he let you come back to Earth, that he let you be with Jane, when previously he had been vocally against it. Perhaps he's feeling guilty. I don't know the whole story, but from this perspective, if I were to point fingers to Odin's greatest mistakes, I would say they were Loki, Loki's children, and whatever happened to the people on Niflheim. Holboðen decided he'd rather smother his own magic than face him, after all.”

“It's a nice theory,” Clint said, but without heart. People like Odin, from an eternal realm and who lived so long, rarely changed so quickly. Thor was an exception; a man raised in a particular manner who had been hit around the face with his own mistakes, given an ultimatum, forced to recognise that he could change.  _ Had  _ to change. Loki changed too much, which made for its own set of issues. Odin, meanwhile, did not change at all.

“Then why did he let Thor come back to Earth?” Steve asked.

Clint shrugged, but continued to shake his head. They couldn't see him do it. “Think about it. This isn't guilt. He's using us to make sure that what he wants to happen  _ happens _ . We mess shit up every time and we are fuelling the fire he's going to toss Loki on. If you don't get it by now, Thor, you never will, but if it's your father then he is not trying to make up for his past. He's making us  _ destroy  _ your brother like he failed to do when he picked him up back on Jötunheim.” 

“There are three other people with power like Odin,” Tony suddenly reminded them, quickly pushing their clever little minds from where Clint had taken the conversation. There were dark paths, and then there were earth-shattering revelations. The idea that his father wanted to hurt his own son might be the push that Thor needed to tumble over the edge alongside his brother.

“Who?” Steve asked.

Natasha answered. “Loki's kids.”

And if there was anything that could distract the blond god, she had just dropped it straight in the middle of his mental path.

It was a like the universe was waiting for a cue. Almost as soon as the words left Natasha's lips , a light flashed in their direction and a familiar face appeared out of nowhere.

Loki said, “What the hell are you doing in here?” His gaze was aimed at Tony. Tony shrugged.

“What's that? Oh,” Bruce said, sounding dumb when they all recognised the shadow spread over Loki's shoulders. Loki had his arm around the limp form of Holboðen, adjusting the unconscious man whilst he continued to glower in Tony's direction.

“Help me. _Now._ ”

Tony rushed to do as ordered.

“What did you do to him?” Bruce asked.

“I sent him into the library looking for books. For  _ you _ .”

“Did you forget about him?” Tony joked, laughing at Loki's candle-lit fury.

“I don't abandon people as lightly as  _ some _ ,” he snapped, and Clint realised that the god was talking about them.

“What did we do? This isn't our fault.” Loki only snarled, bitterly.

Bruce suddenly started laughing, and it came as a shock after a day of being wary of grumpy, twitchy Banner hovering over everyone's shoulders.

“I'm sorry,” he said when they all inquired after his mental state. “I just realised. We've been to the library before.”

“Yeah, Brucie, we know that,” Tony said supportively.

“No, I mean with Loki. It's already happened.”

There was a pause, before Natasha and Steve both tried to smother their own amusement, slightly more successfully than Dr. Banner had managed.

“What have I missed?” Clint asked.

“Don't you remember what happened the last time we were here?” Natasha asked slowly, and it took Clint another moment, and Tony a second one on top of that, to catch on.

“Oh, no wonder he's pissed.” The archer said, grinning widely whilst Loki rolled his eyes, disgusted. Tony made a face at them all, but otherwise may as well have been blushing. He shifted Holboðen off Loki's shoulders entirely, as if as an apology, and they followed the god's quiet, furious lead out of the library.

“I'm sure Stark is contrite,” Thor said, though his voice was jovial. “Once you realise a mistake, you have to correct it.”

“Oh, do not start that with me,” Loki spat, although they were his own words shot back at him.

“It's not my fault I was taken back through time,” Tony interrupted predictably, because Tony was about as well-known as Loki in the apology department. “Believe me, I would have  _ loved _ to have stayed and continue doing what we were doing before, here, or in the halls, or in your room... really,  _ wherever  _ you want-”

“Do shut up, Stark.”

“How about you make me, big boy?” Tony grinned. “We could go back to your place. You could teach me some  _ magic _ if you know what I mean-”

“I know how to  _ magically _ sew someone's lips shut, if that's what you're implying.”

“I can't tell whether I should take that in a kinky way, because considering everything we've been through, that's kinda messed up-”

“As if you're not into all sorts of messed up shit, Stark.” Clint inserted, earning a smack from Natasha. “What? They started it.”

“Don't encourage them.”

“Whoa, shut up, all of you,” Tony ordered suddenly, and Clint got another smack on the arm when he went to call the man out on his hypocrisy.

Iron Man had stopped dead, head leaning towards where Holboðen's had slumped, frown low with seriousness. “He's trying to say something.”

“He's saying  _ Ragnarök _ ,” Loki translated boredly. A man who really wanted to get out of this darkness and maybe have a lie-down. He was not alone. “He's been babbling about it since I found him.”

“And that doesn't concern you? Ragnarök is like... the end of the world, isn't it?” Tony asked.

Loki shrugged. “People go mad in this place.” He gestured to the darkness around him, and the Avengers could see why. “You were here an hour, perhaps? Holboðen had been here for eight days. Likely, to him, it feels longer. On your world, do mad people not babble about the end of days?”

“Well, yeah, but you guys have a prophecy and stuff. We have science and insufferable optimism. We just thought your people might take it a little more seriously.”

Loki was not at all interested, sneering at them unpleasantly. “I know the prophecies better than any, and if a scared, dribbling lunatic intimidated me then I assure you I would not be standing here explaining myself to you. Does that reassure you, Stark?”

“Actually,” Tony began, surprised, but Loki had started forwards again, obviously disinterested in further discussion. The remaining trip, and the careful care of each other when they suddenly stepped into the sunlight, all played out in silence. Loki, like Thor had earlier that day in Tony's lab, dealt with uncomfortable topics by making everyone else feel so equally discomforted that no one wanted to talk about it. In the end, nothing ever really got discussed.

That was going to come back, one day, Clint considered, and it was going to bite them all in the ass.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come find me at: [my usual blog](http://www.space-leviathan.tumblr.com), and [my writing blog](http://www.spaceleviathan.tumblr.com).


	17. 11 - The Training Room

Clint woke up to an empty room.

 _2.26_ AM blinked on the digital clock and he had his arm slung over an empty cold patch. He sat straight, rubbed his eyes, gathered up his pillow. He had been waiting. He had fallen asleep waiting, and he wouldn't be getting any more sleep here tonight.

On the far end of the hall a light flickered on as Hawkeye padded out of the room, south-bound towards another door. He looked up in time to see a glimpse of Natasha smiling, Steve's answering voice a whisper at this impossible distance, but distinguishable. Clint closed the door to his own room behind him, and locked it.

–

For them, it had been about a fortnight since they appeared in a different realm or time period, and that was enough to soothe their headaches and even grow restless. It was an uneasy life living from moment to moment, anticipating the worst around every corner.

It was an empty life, waiting.

Loki was dead and gone in their present, and Tony often forgot and remembered in turn, but their half-month rest had forced his memory. When they were flicking to and fro so rapidly, without being given even a courtesy week to recover, Loki was never really dead at all. His appearance only altered in the length of his hair and the cut of his clothes, and they loved and hated him. Tony's emotions were more complicated than that.

It was why he looked nervous to suddenly be standing in the dark, empty halls of Asgard, because Loki was dead and now he wasn't, and they all had to face him. The lengthy periods of inactivity were worse than the short bursts, if only in this regard. Steve had to pull them all aside to remind them that telling Loki about _anything_ from the future could destroy everything they've been working for. Whatever that was. At this point, Clint hardly remembered.

The Avengers were being led towards a rising noise. There was a muffled din behind the walls, and they were navigating with Thor's steady step, and his summation of the situation: A party, but there were almost always celebrations so he could no sooner pin-point their temporal location than Clint could.

They stopped in front of a set of towering golden doors, etched with runes and symbols and trees, and Hawkeye took out his hearing aid in anticipation.

True to form, there was a din that even Clint winced at as the doors slid open to Thor's command and the Avengers found themselves amid a thrashing and excited crowd.

Natasha looked to Clint and signed that she was going left. Hawkeye pointed directly upwards to show he was happier to find himself a good elevated vantage point. Steve went right without more than a single glance.

It didn't take long, once Clint had navigated himself far above the others, to spot their target: It wasn't as if Loki was in the habit of making himself inconspicuous, particularly not in the midst of some fancy to-do. The last time the Avengers had crashed this sort of thing, Loki had announced his abrupt engagement and gone loopy all in the same evening. Hawkeye didn't want that to happen again, but was aware that when it came to Loki they could only hope to anticipate the worst and minimise any collateral damage.

There was a pervasive chill up this high, far away from the cramped crowd beneath him, and outside the windows it was actually snowing in Asgard. Clint was not at all dressed for it. They may only be projections of themselves, but that didn't stop any of the Avengers from feeling the cold. Although the realm seemed primarily concerned with sunshine, Asgard couldn't be accused of not knowing how to do winter either. This Christmas would almost definitely be white.

Natasha had guessed that it was Yule as soon as they arrived, and Thor's hesitant smile was gentle enough to take as a confirmation. He had his cloak on, the lucky bastard, and everyone else had sleeves. Even Dr. Banner had his jacket.

Hawkeye did not. Hawkeye really needed to go buy something purple and leather with long sleeves when he got home.

And then there was Loki. He had been almost elusive the last few times they had visited, but this time he _really_ was a difficult thing to overlook.

He stood amid the crowd, stark and beautiful and even Hawkeye could man up to admit it. It would be a lie to say otherwise.

The celebration around them, or under them, was great and joyous. There were a multitude of guests from all different races and realms moving and talking and laughing together under one hall, dancing and smiling hard enough to make their faces crack.

Not quite centre-stage, but never far from it, the second prince of Asgard lingered with one foot ever in the shadows. However, the way he was wrapped up in furs and flitting between the bustling crowd kept the limelight glancing with an absent grace over the delicate lines of his cheekbones. Hawkeye wanted to punch him, but knew for a fact that he didn't look any worse no matter how black his eye. It would make him look... rugged, rather than rough. There was a distinction.

The way the furs framed his shoulders made him appear smaller, and for a man towering at over six foot, it was an impressive feat. A trick, of course, as slimy and smart as the rest of him; the winter garb masked his taunt, imposing figure. It made him seem slight, unassuming. _Kept_. He almost had even Clint fooled.

It was a clever ruse, the spy had to admit, as even the Warriors Three, who often glanced at Loki with not half the suspicion he deserved, glazed over him like he was another honoured, welcomed guest for the evening. The only one who seemed to be doing any glaring towards the younger Odinson tonight was the Lady Sif, who needed more than a simple illusion to mistake Loki for a lamb in a very literal wolf-skin.

Another look around the room, however, and Hawkeye realised that he was wrong. There was someone else equally as hostile, frowning at Loki from afar. Chin buried deep in her cloak, it seemed almost as if her avoidance of the crowds could easily be misinterpreted as chills. She too stood delicate and slight. The Lady Sigyn, however, striking and silent and alone, was overlooked in favour of the intrigue of her spouse.

Clint was so focused on Sigyn and her wandering, flickering eyes – to and fro from Loki, back and forth, angry and sad – that he missed the broad gestures of his team right up until Tony was in Clint's face, hovering above the crowd, and Sigyn was looking straight at them. Tony waved down at her.

“I guess Holboðen fixed them like he said he would, huh?” The inventor said.

“Yeah, they seem so happy together.” Clint replied as he hitched a ride from the Iron Man and they drifted down towards her. Tony stuck out his hand for Sigyn to shake. She frowned at him.

“You are-” she said, eyes wide, measuring the empty space between her and the crowd that had widened by another foot as the two Avengers made an unconscious barrier between this reality and their projected images. She realised, too clever to be anything other than Loki's equal, that it was fruitless to ask. Tony stepped forward instead, helmet lifted and eyes narrow, to lean close to her.

“Why can you see us?” He asked. She didn't know, shaking her head furiously. Clint batted his metal arm deploringly.

“Ignore him. We don't care. Are you alright?” He asked, over Tony's protesting tones: _Actually, I care_ a lot...

“Why do you ask?” She returned, and Clint felt himself pulling a face.

“C'mon, I'm deaf, not blind. What's he done this time?”

“Who?”

“I'm not stupid, either.” Clint insisted, though Tony made a disputing snort. “Loki, obviously.”

“My husband?” Sigyn asked, eyes once again fluttering back towards the direction of the high table where Loki was laughing at a beautiful, foreign face. Tony's scowl was equally as deep as Sigyn's frown.

“I can shoot him for you,” Clint offered eagerly, miming the action of his bow and arrow, shrugging unapologetically when the kind woman's sour face turned towards him. “You just seem upset and it's gotta be his fault.”

The three of them spent a moment in silence, individually contemplating what he could have possibly done. For Hawkeye, at least, it was a long, easy list. Sigyn, however miserable she appeared, did not help him point to an answer.

"Can we help?" Clint asked finally, because it was clear Tony wasn't about to, but the lady shook her head with dignity.

“Tonight is a night of magic,” she said softly, almost apologetically, glancing up slowly, only to see her husband deep in conversation with yet another distressingly attractive young god from Vanaheim. She jerked away abruptly, and Tony and Clint shared equally alarmed expressions. She ended the conversation politely, “If you’ll excuse me.”

Sigyn was gone all at once, disappearing out of the doors at her back. They opened for her with apparently nothing but a thought, but didn't close once she had cleared them. Hawkeye watched her for a long moment, following her retreating back down the empty, moonlit halls.

Natasha had appeared at Clint’s elbow by the time he tore his eyes away, shocking his heart into his throat. She said: “If she isn’t back in an hour we should search for her.”

“How long have you been there?”

“That’s my secret, Clint. I’m _always_ there.” She smiled. It was like the clouds parting. Clint rubbed his eyes, suddenly exhausted.

“Yeah, well, she's got some serious issues to deal with, and that smarmy bastard isn't helping.” He pointed back towards Loki who, for the first time, had seen them on the edge of the crowd. His lips were still moving to whatever pretty face he had been drawn to, but his eyes were trained and his face was creased. His mask was slipping, and somehow Clint knew that it was on purpose.

“I hate him.” He announced suddenly, stepping out towards the open doors and ignoring the surprised expressions on his team-mates' faces. When, he asked internally, had it gotten to the point where Clint making a vitriolic statement in Loki's name become shocking?

He had to get out of there, because his world felt like a snow-globe; all topsy-turvy and shaken, chaos unleashed as the universe tipped itself on its head. The only way was out, and the doors stood wide like an invitation.

“An hour?” Natasha's lips read, and Clint shrugged, already turning away. By the time the doors closed again, he was already half-way down the corridor Sigyn had disappeared down.

\--

He found the woman in a wide open room, which during the day served to train those who wanted a little more privacy than the outside areas he'd visited before. There were weapons lining every inch of the walls and Sigyn, with her pretty dresses and soft hands, seemed an alien.

She was slump under what appeared to be an axe once belonging to presumably a giant, staring grimly at her knees.

Upon Hawkeye's intrusion, she asked: "Has my husband summoned me?"

Clint shrugged. "How should I know?"

"Are you not one of his friends?"

"I guess." The archer returned, despite that it hurt him to say it. "I'm not a messenger boy, though."

She watched him for a moment as he stopped in front of her. Her eyes were dark and warm, like a summer's night. The opposite of the cold emerald that her husband boasted.

She asked, “How do you know him?” As if reading Clint's mind.

“We're... colleagues. Work acquaintances. Slapped together on an impromptu magical mystery tour. I don't know him all that well, really. Or, I do, but not enough. Wow, that's complicated and confusing. What about you?”

“We're married-” she misinterpreted.

“I know,” he hurried to correct. “I mean _do_ you know him?”

She stared at him a while. Long enough that he started to fidget. Clint was never any good at this interrogation stuff. For all the time he'd spent with Natasha, he never seemed to get the hang of it. He preferred it when people were punching him. He at least knew what he was allowed to do in retaliation.

Which was why it almost came as a relief when, instead of answering him, Sigyn gestured to the walls and asked: “Do you spar?”

"Can do," Clint said, but narrowed his eyes accusingly at her. "Do _you_?"

"Occasionally." She returned, smiling. She held out her hand, silently asking for help. Clint hoisted her up to her feet. She unclasped the tie at her throat with one hand and cast aside her cloak in the next motion, eyes grazing the walls. Her fingers hovered near a long sword. "I like to know how to defend myself."

"That's probably for the best," he replied, whilst scouring the room for a non-tricked-out arrow to shoot. "What with Loki as your ball-and-chain-"

She attacked from behind, cutting him off mid-sentence, which would have worked if Clint hadn't already replaced his hearing aid. He wasn't completely deaf, though with every battle and each new explosion his hearing was getting steadily worse. He was only a human doing stupid, super-human things for the good of his planet, and when he wasn't still buzzing from saving the world _again_ it just seemed like a senseless sacrifice. The halls had been too silent in the wake of the uproar of the celebration, so he had turned back on whatever he had left and shivered when he realised the dead silence was not just due to his inability to hear.

He caught her blade with the bulk of his bow, but winced at the damage. He could only pray that it would hold long enough for him to get home. She jerked the sword away and swiped at him again. Clint had to roll to escape.

"You're good," He praised, not insincerely. She didn't reply, and Clint had no safe arrows to return with. He grabbed a knife off the nearest hook instead, because he was trained for hand-to-hand, close contact dangers if his archery failed him. He wasn't built for anything heavier.

He managed to evade and dodge with only a few scratches to show when he faltered, and even got a few good hits in with his elbows and dirty, brawling tactics Sigyn did not see coming. It took a while, but they ended up back where they started - leaning against the wall under the axe that really was very big and balanced precariously enough to have Hawkeye keep one eye fixed on it. It was probably held aloft by magic, but Clint didn't trust that all too much either.

"Why did you start to learn?" He asked, when he'd caught his breath. He had been privy to evidence of the gender gap between male and female warriors in Asgard, and someone as delicate and sweet as Sigyn likely had to struggle to even be granted access into this sort of training room. This realm wasn't completely unfamiliar to Earth in some ways.

"My mother encouraged it. On Vanaheim it is not unknown to have unprovoked attacks from outsiders. We are considered a realm of lovers and scholars and mothers." She smiled again, refusing to meet Clint's eye. She remembered what he said about her mockery of a union with Loki. Continued: "Perhaps you're right about Loki. About how it is likely for the better that I can fight."

"Are you two not on good terms a lot?" He thought to ask, though bloody memories of a brawl between spouses from what seemed like forever ago sprang to mind.

Sigyn made a gesture, that might have been a shrug. It was certainly dismissive.

“I guess that apprentice of Loki's isn't as great at marriage counselling as he thought he was,” Clint pointed out.

Sigyn made a huffing noise. “It worked, for a time. Holboðen was speaking to us. He was able to make us speak to each other. He was getting through to Loki, even. Do you know how impossible it is to get my husband to agree to something he wants no part of?”

“I can imagine,” Clint admitted. He _had_ seen Loki bend his will, but could only count the incidents on one hand. The most recent, he realised with a guilt that was not his own, was when Tony had convinced Loki with his own special brand of Stark-ish wiles to keep looking for answers when there blatantly were none. “What happened? Why did it stop working?”

“Loki happened.” Sigyn replied simply. Tiredly. “There was an incident, as there always is. Something bad happens to him, or some _one_ , or a passing thought or Holboðen makes him angry... it could have been anything.”

“Why don't you just get out?” Clint offered. Almost pleaded. “Get away from him.”

“I can't.” She said, fingers hovering over her abdomen. “Not anymore.”

Hawkeye stared and groaned, low in his throat. "Oh, god. You let me _spar_ with you. Does he know?"

Sigyn scrunched her eyes shut, shook her head, and tried to breath. Hawkeye realised all at once that Loki wasn't the only one deliberately left in the dark; in fact, Sigyn hadn't seen fit to tell _anyone_ thus far. It raised the question why she thought Clint, a stranger and known associate of her husband, would be a worthy confidant.

Her voice was hesitant and whispery, because this was a secret and Clint, as a spy, knew better than most that even the most silent walls could still be listening. She said, "I saw what happened to the other three."

"What Odin did, you mean?" Clint said before thinking, remembering the confrontation between Angrboða and Sigyn - how Sigyn refused to accept that Odin may be the reason why Angrboða's children were persecuted and ostracised and destroyed.

Sigyn was staring at him now, pale and shaken and... listening to him. She didn't immediately move to dissuade or contradict him. Hawkeye didn't know how long it had been since Loki's three children had been criminalised, since Angrboða had spoken to Sigyn and broken out and been murdered, but it had obviously been long enough that Loki's first wife was willing to re-consider All-Father's apparent perfection.

Carefully, he asked, "Are you thinking about not telling him at all?"

Automatically, Sigyn shook her head, but then she bit her lip. It was clear that she had no idea what to do, nor anyone to help her. Clint didn't know how to feel about this sudden weight of responsibility.

Dumbly, because he wasn't sure what else to say, he asked: "Do you love him?"

This seemed to surprise Sigyn, as if she had never been asked before. As if her refusal to leave had never been brought to question. As if everyone treated her as blind or blindly loyal or blindly loyal and stupid. As if not a single being on this realm had ever asked if there was something more beneath the surface.

As someone who felt complex enough emotions regarding Loki, never mind living under the same roof as a man who hated the god with the same hard-beating heart which loved him, Clint was in prime position to question.

Nor was he surprised when his query made Sigyn's eyes glaze as if he triggered something deep and tumultuous under her careful visage.

She answered, "I don't know."

"How about _why_?" Hawkeye then asked, because there was a thought eluding his grasp, even though it was there at the forefront of his mind. It was coming closer, almost enough that if she answered this question correctly it might hit him right in the consciousness.

Again, she answered: "I don't know."

"You don't know why you love your husband?" He mused out loud, hushing her when her expression darkened and she moved to defend herself. "I'm not criticising you. I know what you mean. I don't know why you _should_." He didn't know why Clint himself could feel anything but revulsion towards him either.

Sigyn was shaking her head, because she didn't understand. She stared at him like she couldn't figure him out, and Hawkeye didn't know how to even begin to explain. He could read her so easily because they were going through the same thing. Something shifty was happening, and the assassin was starting to get an outline of the larger picture.

"It's okay." He started, which was the worst way to start any conversation. He topped it off by finding no better words than: "It's going to be okay."

"Do you truly believe that? Do you think he will stop?" She asked, suddenly shrill. Her mouth was wide with disbelief. "That he will cease punishing me? Child or no, he will never stop!"

Clint asked, hesitantly, knowing he would not like the answer: "Why is he punishing you?"

"For not being her! For not helping her! He speaks of her obsessively, adoringly. He says he will never love again like he did her. He says that it was madness that drove him to marry me in the first place!"

"Well, wasn't it?" Clint hated that he had to say it, but hated it more that Sigyn's face shone with the certainty that she might even deserve all Loki was giving her. "Not just for him, but for you too? Do you not look back and find it... weird?"

" _Weird_?" Sigyn echoed. "What- _yes_ , of course it was _weird_. It was overwhelming. I didn't know what to do. Not then, and now even less. I thought it was his influence over me for a time, _making_ me feel love, but he hates me more passionately than I ever loved him. If this were his doing he would have stopped... surely?"

"It's not him." Clint assured her. "He's as messed up about this as the rest of us. As far as I know, anyway." he inserted as a disclaimer. He'd been wrong before, and Loki was never honest.  "At least, that's what I  think."

"You believe I should trust him?"

" _No_ ," Hawkeye almost laughed. He caught his tongue just in time, reworded his humour: "Fuck no. Never. He's the god of _lies_."

"Then tell me sincerely, because I know my husband will never be true with me: what is happening here?" Sigyn asked. She wasn't an idiot. She couldn't be. One look at Clint was enough to tell her that something weird was going on. She'd seen them before, the night her and Loki first met. Clint didn't know what the god told her to explain it away, but it had to be pretty spectacular. If she was tied up in this as deeply as Clint suspected then she deserved more than some magnificent lie.

"We don't know," Clint answered. "We don't know why we're being targeted, or what _in particular_ Loki did to piss someone off, or why you can see us." He paused, thought to ask: "You're not harbouring any secret magical affinity, are you?"

"No!" Sigyn fluffed up, offended. "I am no magic-user, though sometimes I believe Loki wishes I were."

"Angrboða was." Clint said before he could stop himself.

Sigyn, thankfully, didn't take offense. Instead, she sighed. "I know. A berserker, as well. She would fit in Asgard better than I."

Clint snorted, desperate to chase away the self-deprecating tone in Sigyn's voice. "Have you _met_ that woman? It was a wonder she didn't eat Odin alive."

"She tried to." Sigyn said slowly, her mind lost in the past, and Clint laughed again to bring her back down to the present.

"You gotta forget that. Forget _her_. She wasn't your burden."

"She is my husband's burden."

Hawkeye shrugged, sighed. Said, "Well, maybe he needs to sort out his priorities."

"He speaks of you, as well." Sigyn said, abruptly. "Of his mysterious, strange visitors. His friends. He talks of you only like he talks of his family. Like he does her. You are Hawkeye?"

"Clint Barton," he introduced, realising for the first time that they hadn't formally met. Time-travel made a mess of everyone's heads. He felt like he knew her a lot more personally than he actually did, but he supposed knowing someone's intimate secrets dissolved a lot of social barriers. "Hawkeye's fine."

"The other man I met - the one who flew? That was Iron Man?"

"Yeah, he's hard to mistake." Clint acknowledged.

"Loki speaks of him often."

"Probably about how annoying he is," Hawkeye tried to laugh, whilst his stomach started clenching with that same second-hand guilt as before. His tone did little to clean the solemn look of Sigyn's face.

"I _would_ leave." She admitted quietly, after a tense silence in which Hawkeye was sure Tony's secret had been busted by a woman who just had to look at him once. "If I could."

"Yeah," Clint returned, thinking once again about how they were not so unalike. "Me too."

\--

Loki and Sigyn were the same and opposite, and Clint thought that they reminded him of Loki and Tony. They reminded him in some ways of Natasha and Steve. In a lesser sense, he could almost see them in himself.

Sigyn and Clint, having done talked themselves silent, returned to fighting. Hawkeye very clearly lost the second time around, careful of his opponent where Sigyn was not, and she harked merrily at her victory. She was beautiful and dark. When she laughed, it was like music. Clint could not imagine wishing ill-will onto a person like her.

Loki, of course, delighted in swimming against the tide. In defying expectations. In repeatedly disappointing all the people who cared about him. They should know better.

Put them together, and they should have looked good. They were attractive and clever and talented; an apparently perfect couple. However, Clint had seen Loki. The archer had seen him wild and free and in love, and it did not look how he and Sigyn did as they stared at each other from down the corridor. It looked, unfortunately, more how Tony stood close to Loki. How Clint had caught himself looking at Natasha in the mirror.

Hawkeye and Sigyn had eventually left the room, only to wander. They were silent companions, and neither had wanted to rejoin the party. The Avengers, meanwhile, were stuck on Loki duty, though Hawkeye had heard nothing from over the comms and trusted that they'd find him if they needed him.

And find him they did. Natasha had stuck to her _one hour_ promise, and had apparently dragged the whole entourage after her. Likely, Clint thought, Steve had wanted to make sure she didn't go alone, and typically where Steve went the Avengers followed. Where the Avengers went, apparently Loki tagged along.

Sigyn had stopped dead, seeing her husband and the ragtag group of heroes as they approached, and so had Loki. Her recent half-baring of emotions with Clint had set her on edge, and she was not eager to get any closer. Neither, it seemed, was Loki. Something had left him raw and exposed as well. He seemed distinctly more flustered in a group of friends than he had done in a room full of strangers.

Bruce, fidgeting with his glasses at the back of the group, looked the most uneasy. Something happened when Clint was away, and he couldn't even speculate what could make the good doctor look about ready to burst into Green Mode at any provocation.

Sigyn's attention, however, was directed towards her husband, and then at the carefully measured proximity that Tony had put between himself and the green-eyed god.

Green-eyed wasn't always literal, and something in Sigyn was apt to snap. The party had been a blow; her own spouse overlooking her in favour of smiling at other stunning men and women, and now Clint had accidentally blown open something painful, and there Tony was doing his worst impression of subtle.

Offended and outraged, Sigyn lashed out without thinking. She had taken and catapulted an arrow towards Loki's face before even Clint could react. Her blood was burning from their sparring, and now her emotions were looking for some relief. Clint was well-associated with the irrational concept that hurting Loki's smug, superior mug would make everything better.

But, for all her passion, for all that she deserved to explode Loki's nose, he was better trained and far too used to being the target of deadly force. He dodged out of the way, the arrow sailing over his shoulder and sending the other Avengers scattered across the hall, and he was seething with rage when he turned back towards her. They were the same and opposite, the archer considered again, because in that moment they were equals: both equally as angry, both equally as strong, both equally as driven to make the other _hurt_.

This, Clint realised belatedly, was not new. For all that Sigyn had opened up to Hawkeye, he was only beginning to scratch at the deeper, long-standing issues. Holboðen certainly had his work cut out for him.

Hawkeye was moving in the exact same motion as Natasha and Steve were: towards the angry gods, ready to pounce if they started trying to kill one another. However, the situation was rapidly defused when a bigger, much _greener_ threat suddenly made the large, shining corridor seem a whole lot smaller.

The Hulk ripped the arrow from his chest, the electricity it pulsed through the target only serving to make him angrier. Sigyn may have missed Loki, but poor old Bruce had been standing right behind him. Now they were all going to have to rally together, put aside their differences, and make sure the Hulk didn't squash them all like bugs.

Tony was  the first to attempt it, holding his hands out. "Hey, big man, c'mon. She didn't mean to hit you."

Clint felt to chime in: "If anything, it's _Loki's_ fault. As usual."

Loki shot him a foul look, one that might have even made Hawkeye feel bad if he weren't already busy being vindictive.

No looks or words, however, seemed to calm the Hulk down. Bruce had already been antsy, and now he was in pain as well. He was looking for the source of that pain, and his eyes fell on Sigyn.

"Oh, shit," Clint said, shooting forward to push Sigyn behind him, stringing his bow with the strongest, most explody arrow he could grab. It didn't do him much good, since the bow fell apart in his hand from Sigyn's earlier strike.

The Hulk was fast and had knocked the other Avengers aside in his haste. He was already too close and knocking Hawkeye aside too.

"No!" Clint said, as Sigyn both backed away and glared challengingly towards the big, unstable Avenger. "Hulk, back down!" He was still the closest, though the Avengers were scrambling up, and he dived towards Banner's alter-ego, bow be damned, and almost got swiped with a craftily hidden knife as Sigyn tried to defend herself.

The Hulk, as far as Clint was aware, was the strongest being in the universe. That didn't stop him though, even when he pushed Sigyn out of the way and ended up struggling not to get squished under the weight of the Hulk's fist. He knew this couldn't end well, but he didn't know what else to do.

Thor was around the Hulk's neck, Tony trying to push him from the front, whilst Steve and Natasha were occupied with Loki and Sigyn. Nothing was working. They tried to call out, Thor pleading with him to stop, Tony still trying to reason with him, telling him they were going to kill Hawkeye. Nothing worked.

The Hulk was still roaring, incensed and hurting, and Clint knew this was partially his fault. Mostly it was Loki's fault, and Sigyn should not have let her emotions get the best of her, but Clint could accept a percentage of the blame. Twelve percent, maybe.

That didn't necessarily mean he deserved to be crushed into a purple smear, but Sigyn deserved it even less. Whilst the Hulk was just reacting to stimuli, Hawkeye was no idiot, and neither was the beast of an experiment he was trying to hold off.

When his own strength started to give out, and the Hulk moved towards the goddess again, Clint called out, somehow heard amid the other voices: "Stop! She's pregnant!"

The hallway was suddenly punctuated only with heavy breathing, the panting breath, as the Hulk continued to lean his weight on Clint but otherwise froze. Hopefully, the archer prayed, he had stopped to consider.

The Hulk moved away from the archer abruptly, and Clint almost stabbed him with the point of his grappling-arrow when he continued to step closer to Sigyn. The assassin stopped, however, when he recognised that the motion was no longer hostile, though they were undoubtedly angry.

After a tense moment, where Sigyn didn't dare look away from the blazing radioactive green eyes, the Hulk roared in her face, a lesson as much as a threat, and smashed a hole through the wall that led out to a distressing thousand-foot drop. And the Hulk dropped straight out of it.

"What the hell." Tony stated into the cold atmosphere, as Steve silently signalled to let Bruce go. The Avengers, feeling the wind from the crumbling wall and the snow as it poured in, didn't need to be told twice.

The heroes started to breathe again, but realised as they calmed down that there were two members of their party who remained apprehensive. Sigyn, clambering up from where she had fallen, had once again met her husband's eyes.

Loki, in return, glanced between Sigyn and Clint, as if the archer could help him, but Clint had already said too much.

Hawkeye felt only so bad about outing her secret, since he couldn't think of anything else that might tap into the less primal side of the Hulk's rage-induced frenzies. The guy wasn't dumb or bad, but like a Berserker he sometimes got lost in his own whirlwind emotions. He needed something heavy to bring him back to reality.

Hawkeye, contemplating the wall and trying to ignore Loki, almost missed the way Sigyn started forward, knife still clutched like a life-line in between her shaking fingers.

He wasn't the only one to quickly intercept the couple. Thor stepped directly in front of his brother whilst the other three made a quick barrier. Clint pushed against Sigyn's forward motion, clutching at her arms to make her stop, but it only worked when Natasha threw in her weight as well. Stuck once again in between two furious forces, Clint had filled his quota for heroism for the entire month in the last five minutes

"It's okay," Clint repeated, the same as he had earlier. He ended it differently, however: "I'm sorry."

She stared at him for the first time since they had left the room, and Clint's gut fell at the betrayal in her eyes. She shook her head, her expression twisted with anger, and tore away from the duo's grasps. She looked back only once before she tore down the corridor, back the way they came, to glance at her husband.

Loki, go figure, was still furious and wild-eyed. None of this seemed to have had any effect on him at all. Clint almost punched him.

The Avengers kept silent, not knowing what to say, so Loki took it upon himself to speak.

“I didn’t need protecting from my own wife. I am not weak.” He snarled at them, but the Avengers had long since decided they had experienced quite enough of this whole _going it alone_ biz which had ultimately ended up with death and pain when pride got in the way of common sense and eclipsed any sense of family and support.

“We’re not saying you’re weak.” Clint snapped, because Loki really needed a wake-up call and if his brother or his god-damn sometimes boyfriend weren’t willing to give it, then Clint was fed up enough to be just the right man for the job. “We’re protecting you because we _love_ you, you ungrateful bastard."

He could have gone on, ranted until he was blue in the face. He could have cursed 'til he was blind, spat in Loki's stunned expression, because he had spent time with a victim and Loki was certainly not one. There were people in this unending, glittering palace that deserved love and devotion, but Loki was not one of them either. Yet, here they all were, standing in a circle, and every one of them loved him so much.

Hawkeye didn't open his mouth at all in the end, because he wasn't sure if he would scream or puke.

\--

Clint woke up to an empty room. The alarm clock said it was _4:36_ AM.

He kept his eyes shut when Natasha's footsteps crept down the halls. She lingered for a moment outside of Clint's door, and then moved on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come find me at: [my usual blog](http://www.space-leviathan.tumblr.com), and [my writing blog](http://www.spaceleviathan.tumblr.com) for updates n junk.


	18. 16 - Malibu

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoa, angst ahoy.

For a week, Clint thought it was a good idea to go home, back to his little apartment building on the crappy side of town. He liked it there. He had a lot of TV to catch up on. It was... not quiet in the least. Clint liked that the most.

He shrugged at Natasha when she advised against it, and said: "Well, it's not like it matters where we start out. We always end up someplace else anyway."

More literally, that 'someplace else' where their bodies wandered whilst their minds were otherwise occupied wound up to be, apparently, consistent. Tony, at least, was thanking his lucky stars.

"It's a little weird when you map it all out," they told the group, and Hawkeye over Skype. "We spread out in different directions and just... sit down. Natasha stops in a corridor in a hotel, I sit in a diner in town, Bruce is at a park, here's a vine of Thor is kicking his legs over a bridge, Steve is somewhere in a dingy back alley. Seems random, until you zoom it out."

The scientist showed them a picture on a monitor, sending it straight to Clint's laptop through what the archer was certain was modern-day witchcraft, and it mapped the five time-travelling Avengers out. From a birds-eye view, they took the shape of a very neat, very _big_ pentagon.

"What about me?" He asked, realising his name hadn't been on the list. Stark made a face, and Clint knew he wasn't going to like what he was about to hear.

"You're here." And another dot appeared in the screen, dead in the centre of the shape. "To be honest, Clint, I don't even know where that is. Nothing is showing up and I'm a little creeped out. I flew over it, but it just seems to be abandoned space. I've set up some cameras around the area, but... seriously, there's nothing there."

"I can't tell if that comforts or spooks me," Clint admitted, reaching up to unmute the TV as the adverts came to an end. "How about you guys figure it out and call me back when you know something that's not weird."

"Hawkeye-" Steve's voice drifted across the computer, but Clint had already hung up. It filled him with a great sense of satisfaction that he could once again settle in his own sofa and watch his own shows without risk of superhero interruptions. Just a man, his pizza, and a dog.

It was good to be home.

\--

Three days into his move back to his flat, he was invited to the Avengers tower for a debrief he couldn't so easily escape from. It was presented as a compulsory check-up with Dr. Banner, but Clint knew what they actually meant. After three days peacefully at home, with only mobsters to keep at bay, Hawkeye was feeling pretty good. He thought he might even be up to hanging with his team-mates for the day.

Surprisingly, Bruce really _did_ want to make sure he was physically okay.

"I heard about what happened." He said sheepishly. "The other guy almost squashed you."

"The other guy isn't all that." Clint tried to reassure the doctor, and although Bruce could tell Clint was trying to hide how rattled he had been about the incident, he didn't say anything. "What about you? I mean you shot off into Asgard in the dead of winter. You didn't catch pneumonia or anything?"

"No, we're pretty sturdy." Bruce smiled gently, and Clint felt a little more at ease, even if the scientist was holding a needle in one hand.

"Hey, do you mind if I ask..." Clint started, faltered, and then decided to power through. "Something happened when I was with Sigyn, didn't it? I saw your face. You looked a little... out of it even before you hulked out."

"It was nothing. Just Loki."

"Since when is anything 'just' with Loki?" Clint pushed, ignoring the way Bruce's lips tightened. "It's always a mess with him, no matter what."

He tried to meet Bruce's eye when the man glanced away, mouth remaining solidly shut.

Hawkeye recognised how harsh his tone had been, realised that Bruce had been shaken up enough by it to Hulk out, and now Clint was trying to push him to relive it.

Softly now, Clint said, "It's fine. Sorry."

Softly now, Bruce nodded.

\--

There was a debriefing, and it was Nat and Steve backing Clint into a corner by bribing him with home-cooked goods. Due to rarely being at home, Natasha was a mistress of many arts, cooking included. Tony was there too, but seemed uninterested in all the official stuff. He, like Clint, had been lured in by the smell of baking. They were animals easily trapped.

Tony passed over Clint's fixed bow whilst Cap settled between them both.

"You fiend," Clint joked when Steve pulled out the files and Natasha pulled out the chocolate-chip cookies. "Now I _can't_ leave!"

"Not until you've given in to our demands," Cap joked back, stealing the first cookie off the steaming plate straight out of Tony's reach. "We just need you to fill in a few gaps."

"Like what?" Clint asked redundantly, since he already knew what they were about to say.

"What happened between you and Sigyn?"

"Hey, that reminds me," Clint avoided gracelessly, and Natasha eyeballed him pointedly over the table. The archer was becoming a master of ignoring her probing looks. "What happened to you guys when I was with Sigyn?"

"Why do you ask?"

"Because Bruce seemed _rattled_. I don't like it when Dr. Banner is rattled. That, in  fact, is my least favourite thing for him to be. Rattled is very close to _uneasy_ which is very close to _angry_."

"You asked Bruce?" Tony asked through a mouthful of crumbs. He sounded startled and that, alongside Steve's wide-eyed look, starting ringing some emergency bells in Clint's not-so-stupid little brain.

"I'm sorry, was I not allowed to? See, I didn't know that 'cause nobody tells me anything-"

"Maybe that was because you weren't here." Natasha inserted sharply. Clint was a better man than to glare at her, but it was a close thing.

"Yeah. And because I've apparently offended everyone's sensibilities, I get interrogated by you three whilst you all get to keep information from me."

"We're not keeping anything from you-"

"Then just _tell_ me! What is so bad that you have to dance around it for half a week-?"

"It's about Sigyn." Steve admitted. "We were hesitant to tell you because you seemed... protective."

Clint made a gesture, as if to question why he shouldn't be.

Tony was looking up now, watching with interest. He had slowed down his chewing, eyes trained solidly between Clint and Steve.

Captain America, after Clint's cheeks were starting to ache with how much effort he was channelling into his most serious, business-like frown, said: "Bruce was the one who overheard them, not me, but from what he said, Loki was speaking with Holboðen. They were talking about Sigyn. In hindsight, what with her... condition, it makes a lot more sense."

"Loki knew about the baby?"

Natasha nodded. "He knew."

"He knew and he didn't try to stop Green Bruce when he went to flatten her?"

"You're missing the point." Natasha interrupted.

"Really? At the pace you're going I didn't realised you had a point-" Clint started petulantly, already hating the direction this was going, hackles rising rapidly.

Steve cut across him, stating: "They were talking about Loki's children. About what Sigyn had done to them."

"Sigyn didn't do _anything_ -"

"Then what she did to Angrboða." He corrected.

Natasha took over then. "We were there. We saw that Sigyn wasn't trying to help Angroboða at all."

"That doesn't make her responsible for what happened. She didn't _kill_ her." Clint argued, baffled. He hadn't even realised this was up for debate. "What was she going to do? _Order_ Odin to let the dangerous Berserker go free?"

"You don't understand. She was trying to find an excuse to hunt down those children as much as Odin. She was needling for information like a professional." The Black Widow should know, after all, but Hawkeye was a spy as well.

Clint had to replay this in his mind a few times over, shake his head and blink rapidly. "Are you... joking? Did we overhear the same conversation?"

"You didn't hear _anything_ Clint, you just lip read."

"Oh, right, now it's my fault for being deaf-"

"We're saying you might have misinterpreted."

"Did Loki say all of this to you? You do remember he's a _liar_ -"

"He was speaking to Holboðen."

"Oh, yeah, of course. A conversation which Bruce happened to catch a snatch of in a crowded room in the middle of a Yule celebration in which, obviously, alcohol had been consumed in _vast_ quantities. And from that, you decide... what? That Sigyn is to blame for what happened to Angrboða's kids?"

"We didn't say that-"

"Anyway," Clint interrupted, because this whole thing was getting ridiculous. "I thought Holboðen was trying to help them sort their marriage out."

Tony spoke up for the first time, and predictably, what with his own personal afflictions, he wasn't there to back Hawkeye up. "Holboðen is trying to help _Loki_. And perhaps he's right. Maybe Sigyn having a child is a bad idea-"

"What? You're crazy. Have you met her? She like if a rainbow puked up a person-"

"She killed Loki the first time we met her. Do you remember that?"

"Did you see the state _she_ was in? It was probably self-defence."

"She threw an arrow at him-"

"Exactly my point! She _threw_ an arrow. Who does that? The only reason it had any effect at all was because it was triggered by touch."

"She electrocuted Bruce." Tony argued.

"Bruce is the most hardy of all of us. Don't treat him like he's broken glass."

Natasha held out a hand towards him. "Clint, you have to calm down. You're acting really weird."

" _Me_?" Clint parroted, outraged, moving away from her out-stretched arm. "Look in the mirror, Nat!"

"I think we all need to calm down." Steve interrupted, holding a cookie of peace out towards each of them. Clint refused to take his.

With his best disappointed face, one that made Clint want to squirm like a child stuck on the naughty step, Steve levelled his steady cornflower-blue eyes on the archer.

"Even if we disagree on specifics, that's all we know. Loki certainly didn't seem happy about it. Do you mind telling us what happened between you and Sigyn now?" Steve asked carefully.

But not carefully enough.

"Yes, I mind." Clint said, standing straight, cookies or no. He made for the door, but quickly found his exit blocked by a red-haired assassin who wasn't about to take no for an answer. She was glowering, and Clint knew himself well enough to recognise that he was returning the furious expression. He felt weirdly betrayed, like she should stand by him no matter what. Really, by now, he knew her better than that.

"Clint." The spy said lowly in warning.

The archer took a breath, and turned back around. He marched to the counters, away from where Natasha was now settling back down at the table, and crossed his arms over his chest. He had the attention of all three Avengers in attendance.

He spoke, "If you really want to know, she told me about her pregnancy. She was scared for her child. She knew what having a child with Loki would end up like, and now she has to face the consequences."

"You feel sorry for her?" Tony asked.

"Am I not meant to?" Clint spat. "She's married to _him_!"

"She had a part in condemning Loki's children! She is only feeling guilty about it because she realised it might happen to her too."

"Have you gone insane?" Clint shrieked. "She is not a monster! Loki has you all twisted around his sick little finger, and I will not have you go against her for something she did not do!"

"Loki? Clint, we know Loki is a lying scumbag, but listen to yourself! You were with her for an hour and suddenly you're her biggest advocate?

"She's a victim!"

"We don't know that!"

"And you're jealous of her because you can't have him!" Clint shouted, and the deathly silence that followed almost made him regret it.

He spoke again, because no one else seemed about to, shaking his head. His tone was lower now, and he forced himself to look at Tony's blank, dead-eyed expression. "She is being manipulated, just like you are, Stark. She loves him as much as you do. She hates him as much as we all do. You can't demonise her for something that is not her fault."

"What about him?" Stark asked, voice deceptively calm, throwing Clint for a loop. He wasn't used to this tone of voice, or this side of Tony that bottled up his emotions in a way that made him peaceful rather than furious. "Is he being manipulated?"

"It just proves my point. You're so bent out of shape, the only thing you can focus on is Loki! And maybe he is, maybe he isn't, but I know that one moment he loves her and another he doesn't. C'mon, that's gotta be ringing some alarm bells."

"What about Angrboða? Was he on-off with her?"

"No." Clint said, but there were multiple reasons for that. "Maybe we don't know enough, didn't see any of their bad days, or maybe he did genuinely love her, but that's not what I'm trying to say-"

"Or me?" Stark said, as if Clint hadn't said the second part. "Is he on-off with me?"

Clint had to stop to think about it. It took a while, trying to rearrange what they'd been through into some sort of semblance of chronology, and then took another long moment to work up the courage to admit: "No."

"Yeah, _no_." Tony said, still infuriatingly calm. "He isn't like what he is towards Sigyn. Not with me. If what they have is faked, then what he feels for me is _not_. And he _does_ feel for me. Or he did. Whichever. I'll take it, either way."

He stood up, content to have made his point, but something in Clint's stomach boiled at the way he was walking away, heading out of the kitchen as if he was righteous when Clint wasn't allowed such an easy escape.

"Then what about the Battle of New York?" Clint called after him, finding some distinct satisfaction in watching Tony's shoulders freeze. "He tried to kill you, Stark, and he knew you by then. He knew all of us, and he was going to slaughter us. What would I call that? Oh, right, yeah: _On-off_."

It took Tony a moment to start moving again, but he didn't turn back. Clint didn't expect him too.

When he looked to the remaining two, they wore heavy frowns. They didn't meet his eye.

Clint left wondering why he'd even bothered to come in the first place.

\--

Day six, and Clint hadn't heard much from the Avengers at all. This was primarily his fault, since he'd shut off all outside communication, content that they'd figure out a way to get to him if they _really_ needed him. So far, nothing.

And then he was in California between a blink of his eyes, there was a TV sitting opposite him that seemed _ahead_ of their time rather than belonging somewhere in the past, and he was back with the team.

"Where are we?" Steve asked warily, because they'd been warned about travelling _forward_ in time, but Tony snorted and righted them. This time, he was the Avenger in the know.

"Welcome to Barbie's Malibu Mansion."

"This is yours?"

" _Was_. That bastard Mandarin blew it off the map. Whoa, look out-" Tony said, because a seemingly calm visage of Pepper Potts breezed straight by them, oblivious to their presence, and from her hairstyle Tony concluded: "2011. Probably after Vanko? Or just about. Pepper looks harassed enough." He was following her down some steps towards the basement, chattering to himself all the while, and the Avengers followed him, dazzled, down.

The tower was one thing, but this place was something else. There was something homely about it, the place where Tony felt safe, and the tower in New York hadn't been around long enough to quite measure up. Even now, Tony was strutting through it as if it had never been destroyed.

At the bottom of the steps, a glass door refused to open for them. JARVIS, running all the electronics across the house, did not even recognise they were there at all. Technically, Clint had to remind himself, they weren't.

Thankfully Pepper, who had been only a few steps in front of them, had already solved that problem. She had propped the door open, and since there was no one other than the two of them in the house, there was no protest, either. There were still voices arguing, and the Avengers followed them.

"I'm not going," A voice said, whiny and bratish, and who else would it be but Tony Stark himself, a few years younger with a pout that remained the same. Pepper, strawberry blonde and tall in a snappy thousand dollar skirt-suit, had dealt with him too long to be exasperated.

"You are," she said, ignoring his complaints about it not being his job anymore. "I'm CEO, but your name is still up there on the building. If I have to go to another of these 'boring' celebratory 'well-done-the -the-city-is-saved' galas than so do you. It is technically your fault it's even happening."

"Yeah, I should have let that psycho raze the city."

"If you did, you wouldn't be the guest of honour at this expensive, glitzy to-do. Sounds almost worth it." The woman was cutting with sarcasm, wielding it like a knife. More seriously, she added, "I thought you loved all this attention."

"I _love_ my suits." Tony said, gesturing to the slashed pieces of armour in his hands. "And Vanko went off and messed that up."

"You've been down here for days."

"Rhodey stole one of them, too!" Tony carried on as if he hadn't heard her. He might not have, not over his own voice and flailing hands. "I need to restock. How good would I be if I didn't have a functional suit?"

"As good as you'd be if you didn't have a functional _company_." Pepper reminded him sharply. "There will be alcohol and fans and probably another award of some sort-"

"Keeping my company afloat is your job." Tony protested, but Pepper had a retort for that too.

"Yes, it is. And my job requires me making sure I'm doing all I can for what's best for the company, and what's best is that Iron Man shows up at a party thrown in his name to represent my business. I'm not asking you to go, Tony, I'm _telling_ you. It's at eight. Don't be late."

"What are you going to wear to incite me?" He asked, spiteful more than flirtatious, but Miss Potts had since considered the conversation closed and was already through the glass doors. The Avengers were left alone with a sulking baby Iron Man, one prior to the Avengers, to even meeting them, and the garage was in pieces and he had hardly recovered from his palladium poisoning. He looked tired.

The Avengers settled down to wait for something to happen.

"Oh my _god_ , you're boring," Clint claimed loudly, two hours later, when the past-Tony had not so much as stood up. The team had been through four games of spin the arrow, during which Bruce had kissed Thor on the nose, Clint had screwed up his eyes to put his lips to Tony's forehead, and Steve had kissed Natasha on the cheek. After that round, Clint had split off to try to distract boring-Tony (to no luck) whilst the present-Tony began poking around the garage and staring mournfully at his cars. "Is this all you do down here?"

"Excuse you," he chimed back, opening his arms grandly. "This is where the magic happens."

He was interrupted by the crash of his younger doppelgänger tossing the sheet of metal to the floor with a crash. He was scowling childishly, kicking at it with an absent, irritated foot, whilst the older Tony winced. He defended himself: "I _am_ a genius."

"That must have been some sort of futuristic science-y procedure." Steve said with such surety that Clint almost believed he was being sincere. "From all the way over here in the '40s, it looked like a tantrum."

"Watch," Tony said, whilst his younger version suddenly sat bolt upright, staring at the metal on the floor, mouth widening around the syllable: _Oh_. "It was a _genius_ tantrum."

"You're an inspiration to us all." Bruce returned, fondly.

Young-Tony, suddenly bright-eyed with a familiar mania the Avengers had learned to dread, held out his arms and made a beckoning motion with his hands. Clint, with a stab of panic, wondered if they'd been busted, but the Tony of yesteryear was still staring at the chest plate. He made the motion again, then smiled again when nothing happened. He rubbed his wrists, contemplatively.

"Should we be calling a psych-ward, Stark?" Hawkeye asked, but Tony was rapt, watching his own figure.

"Look at me," he grinned. "This is why I'm the clever one. Do you even realise what just happened? That was when I decided to make armour I could _summon_."

"Are you serious?" Clint asked, at the same time that Steve said: "Why, because you were too lazy to walk two feet?"

"That is _exactly_ why. You ever read any Taoist texts? The brightest ideas come closest from nothing whatsoever."

"Inspired." Bruce said again, whilst his fellow Avengers tried not to laugh outright.

Ridiculous though it was, there was something magical watching Tony from that point on. He was alive with a new project, taken with his own intelligence, like someone had switched his old batteries with super-charged replacements.

Which was just when JARVIS destroyed Tony's concentration with a reminder that Pepper was willing to castrate if the inventor didn't abide by her wishes. Past-Tony almost ignored him, but thought better of it. Bruce shared a thumbs-up with the present-Tony. It was the right decision.

\--

The gala was some glitz and glam, a typical Tony Stark gathering, with beautiful men and women milling around, smiling molar to molar, throwing champagne down their throats like drowning fish. The pinnacle of the upper class. Clint was delighted.

Tony, both the past and the present incarnation, was clearly underwhelmed. Unimpressed. The former was hovering by the bar, fingers twitching restlessly around his third scotch, and then swallowing his forth in a large gulp. It looked to be the theme of the evening.

"Do you even _remember_ this party?" Clint asked critically, and Tony rolled his eyes.

"Why are we here?" Natasha asked.

Steve returned, "What do you mean?"

"No Loki in sight." She said shortly.

"Why would Loki be here?" Bruce inserted. "He'd still be in Asgard..."

Thor, standing silent and contemplative behind them, considering the bright lights and the happy, delicate people, breathed in the air. "I came down to Earth, once. Agent Coulson and I met in New Mexico for the first time. My brother, briefly, was also here."

"You think that's around now?"

Thor didn't know, but could make a good approximation. Tony groaned loudly.

"I'm not up for messing up the time stream. How about you, gang?"

"Keep Loki away from Tony." Steve instructed the Avengers. The strain to his voice betrayed the importance of the mission. "Since he's not here yet, we'll spread out. Widow, with me. Bruce and Thor, go left. Iron Man and Hawkeye-"

"Hawkeye gets to keep an eye on me," Tony gestured, pointing to his increasingly intoxicated self at the bar on the other end of the room. "I got this."

When he flew off, Steve nodded in Clint's direction after the archer protested. "He's not the boss of me."

"It's a good idea. You can keep an eye on whatever is happening, in case it's _not_  Loki for some reason. You've got the best eyes."

"I don't respond to flattery!" Clint called out after the team-leader when he ran out of one of the entrances with Natasha at his back.

Resigned to his fate, Clint looked up. There were no visible perches that could keep him out of the way of the party and get a good vantage point of the room. He was stuck down here with giggling, rich drunks, none of which could even see him, and he didn't quite know what to do with himself.

The following half hour was spent stalking Tony Stark, which was not a hard task. Clint wasted the majority of it leaned against one wall, eyes darting through the crowd whilst Past-Tony shook hands and smiled and drank and flirted. He danced once, with Pepper, and somehow managed to keep himself upright. Pepper patted his cheek fondly when the music drew to a close and applause replaced it; a thank you for showing up, interacting, being the best Tony he could be.

It was all very typical Tony. Watching him for this long, this closely, it was a wonder how Clint hadn't realised before.

Tony, their Tony, the one who was currently flying around on the look-out for some crazed green-eyed god, was not this man. He still drank enough to down a small army, he still sulked in his labs, he still shaved his beard in the exact same way and flashed that precise fake smile when someone pissed him off or bored him, but this Tony was different. He was independent. He looked at Pepper Potts with a gentle, dopey expression, and it was in no way obsessive or tragic. He loved her, but he didn't _need_ her. Absolute dependency was the corner stone to broken hearts, abuse and messy endings. Clint had seen too many people destroyed that way.

Seeing Tony, alive and about as stable as Tony ever had been, hardened something in Hawkeye's resolve.

And then he saw green.

Tony had excused himself to head towards the bathroom, down a long, empty corridor that was lit orange and yellow. Clint hurried after him, because someone else was in fast pursuit.

"Loki," Clint said, almost running to overtake him, arms out, waiting for the god to step into his reach so he could push him away. "Fancy meeting you here!"

"Barton." Loki greeted, but his eyes were drifting over Clint's shoulder. It was an urgent, unravelling look. "I need to talk to Tony."

"Why? Talk to me. What's up? You looked stressed. I'm all good with being a confidant, I've had loads of practice. I'm a spy, y'know. Tony, Tony'll just talk. _Terrible_ at keeping quiet-"

"It seems you have something in common." Loki said, but was finally looking straight at him. Clint tried for a smile. "What do you want?"

"Can we not just talk?"

"You're hiding something from me." Loki said, quick as a whip, with burning eyes that could see through everything. A trickster god with a silver-tongue. There was no use lying, but that never stopped Hawkeye from trying.

"Busted," he said.

Loki stared, expectant, impatient. Clint's eyes narrowed, because Loki was many things, angry, excitable, blood-thirsty, but he was used to plans and long hours in between with nothing to do. Impatience on his smooth face was unseemly.

"What's got up your butt?"

"Excuse me?"

"You in a rush or something?"

"I am on a strict schedule," Loki confirmed, lips thinning. "Why are  you determined to stop me from speaking to your team-mate?"

"Because I'm reasonably sure 'speaking' would rapidly turn into something else. Like 'fighting', or 'stabbing' or, even worse, like some scene out of a horrible X-rated B-movie."

"For what reason would I fight or stab him?"

"Look, honesty time?" Clint finally explained, deflating. "Tony's not met you yet and we've unanimously agreed that it's probably for the best you two leave meeting in the hands of fate." He nodded wisely, trying to keep Loki's drifting eyes on him. "And don't think I didn't notice you ignoring that last part, but I'm tactfully not mentioning it because I don't want you to start waxing lyrical about all the X-rated things you and Stark want to get up to-"

"When does _fate_ dictate I meet him?" Loki demanded, muscles tensing the more Clint spoke. A wildness was starting to fizzle around Loki's visage, despite his snappy 3-piece suit and houndstooth scarf.

Clint, ignoring everything that had happened between them, really hated to see the trickster god upset. As upset as Loki got anyway. He seemed particularly hassled today, which made two of them. "Soon." He replied. "Really soon. It's something to look forward to. You look lovely, by the way."

Loki, sighing and with a god's strength, pushed Clint to the side and it took the Avenger a moment to jolt himself forward  to stop him from causing all sort of cosmic trouble.

"Don't do that. Look at yourself. Think about what you're doing."

Loki didn't reply, breathing heavily out of his nose, fuse quickly burning close to the explosion at the other end. It was set to ignite, and Clint was in its direct line of fire.

"You're a mess. Over _Tony_ ," Clint elaborated. "Tony Stark?" Because Loki didn't seem to be getting the message.

"Get out." Clint pleaded, sharply reminded that he'd asked the same thing of Loki's wife. "Get out of here, get out of _this_. You're just going to get hurt."

Loki remained silent, and Clint realised that he probably hadn't even heard him. His laser-sharp eyes were focused intently on something behind Hawkeye, and he didn't have to stretch his imagination to any great lengths to guess what it was. Where had been strain along the line of Loki's shoulders quickly relaxed. Few people in the universe made the trickster's expression slip that fast.

Holding his breath, expecting the worst, he turned his head.

And here came the boom.

Moving hastily down the corridor, a still very clearly inebriated Tony Stark was on a direct collision course. Though his vision was no doubt blurry, if his blown pupils were any indication of how drunk the madman was, he still eyed Loki's scarf with a look that was totally unwarranted from a man who paraded around in red and gold.

"Nice suit." He praised.

"That's not Tony," Clint said to Loki, ignoring their new company, in an attempt at damage control. And then, because his tongue couldn't help itself, he continued: "Well, actually, if we want to be technical this is closer to the real Tony than anything you've ever seen, but that's not the point."

And it was true. This Tony, though he was drunk off his ass, was staring at the tall black-haired man like the world had gone mad whilst he'd been in the bathroom, was something a lot more true than whatever it was Loki was gooey-eyes over. His eyes didn't focus on Loki any better than they did on the invisible Clint, and there was definitely no glint of smoompy, unexplained emotions that made the archer sick to the bottom of his guts.

Clint could see as much, so Loki could too. And any sort of relief the sight of Tony brought immediately disappeared as the half-conscious man clearly had no recollection of him, having never seen or heard of Loki before and a long way from it.

"Don't-" Clint warned, but Loki was already reaching out.

"Tony," The liesmith said almost like a question, and the inventor somehow managed to clasp his hand and shake, a well-practiced façade of warmth in his firm grip, and Clint watched Loki's crumbling mask snap back into place.

"Great to meet you," Tony said briefly, a line spoken a hundred times tonight alone, before snatching his hand back sharply and brushing his shoulder coldly as he walked - stumbled - back to the chattering crowds.

Hawkeye watched Loki carefully, cautious about how he would react, and shrugged when Loki's green eyes met his. "I told you not to."

Loki was building himself up again, rapidly, and what had replaced any vulnerability was frosty, unreachable. Clint watched it with some amount of horror, because there was love, and that made you stupid, and then there was love, and that made you cold.

"I was at Tony's... workshop. Not today," Loki replied to Clint's sharp, confused look. "Many things have happened these few days and I didn't know what to do. Every time there has been tragedy, you have all been so close behind, but you were not there."

"So you thought you'd come to us?"

"I found you. I went looking for  you all. You didn't know me. I looked for you." He stared at Clint, and the archer sucked in a breath. "I waited until the last of you to see Tony. I'd hoped..."

It was very clear what he'd hoped, and he'd been very, very wrong.

"That was dumb," Clint replied, because it _was_ and he had no brain-to-mouth filter.

"I watched him for hours. He couldn't see me. I didn't dare reveal myself, because I was angry. I thought he might react badly if I just appeared, and I knew I would lash out." His voice was dry, careful, steady. There was something bubbling under the surface, and it was gearing to rear its ugly head. A breaking point. Clint had timed the explosion wrong.

"His science is not unlike my magic. Primative, perhaps, but closely related. He once spent hours explaining it to me, and his enthusiasm infected me like a love spell. It was beautiful. _He_ was beautiful."

"You disgust me. Both of you." But Clint was staring, assessing, because, speaking of love spells, if Tony was ditzy and dependent with love then it made Clint wonder what Loki was like without it. Probably an even bigger dick than usual. Maybe it was better for both of their personalities that they were too obsessed with each other to be abrasive.

That didn't mean, however, that Clint wasn't going to fight this thing, probably an enchantment, love spell or some sort of hypnotism or whatever. He was going to put a stop to it. If he let it continue, at this rate Loki and Tony were going to self-destruct.

The archer thought for a moment that he should tell Loki, but there was something very carefully constructed in the way the god held himself and Hawkeye could almost see the clock ticking down. _3, 2, 1, boom_. When it happened, Clint wanted to be nowhere in the vicinity.

"You should get going." He said instead. "Going from how much Tony drank, he'll probably be back soon."

For a moment, the god seemed to be weighing up the pros and cons, and Clint wanted to shake him. The archer had a limit to his patience regarding love-induced idiocy. If they saw each other again, it could go horribly wrong. Tony, not having looked directly at Loki through sheer luck, may not be so dismissive if he was continued hanging around. He wasn't a dumb man, and he was certainly suspicious, no matter how much alcohol he consumed.

And then Loki made up his mind, was gone in an instant, and Clint was left with something broiling under his skin. Antsy, thinking hard, he started to pace.

\--

After he'd woken up, alone in his own bed, in his own flat, in his own building, Clint quickly found himself stuffing clothing back into a bag, grabbing for the essentials, calling for a cab. All under the scrutiny of big, dark eyes. He knelt in front of the canine, scratched his ear, ran his fingers down the dog's soft fur.

Whispered, "Sorry, bud, but this is important."

The week was over, and Clint, as much as he hated to admit it, considered that home wasn't necessarily where the heart was, but where his family were. And his family needed help.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come find me at: [my usual blog](http://www.space-leviathan.tumblr.com), and [my writing blog](http://www.spaceleviathan.tumblr.com) for updates n junk.


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